Sacrifice
by littlesoprano
Summary: Mad with grief, Illyria regains her powers and defeats the demon army. She finds that she can restore Wesley... but at a very, very great cost.
1. The Battle

Disclaimer:  None of the characters in this chapter are mine.  I think we all know this.

Author's Notes:  To be honest, I really wasn't going to write this story.  There have been so many wonderful continuations to "Not Fade Away" and some terrific Illyria-introspection fics already written, so it seemed rather pointless.  However, I suppose I just couldn't help myself, and the Blue Meanie does have her way of clomping around (in those huge war boots, no less) and stirring up plot bunnies.  (The second chapter of his is much more original than the first, but I suppose we all have to do our necessary take on the battle scene.)  So, I have made a tentative foray out of my usual Scooby-Doo fandom (Velma introspection, anyone?) and here is the result.

Sacrifice 

An Angel fanfiction by Littlesoprano

Chapter 1:  The Battle__

            Illyria had never known such pain--  not in any battle, in any of her seven existences, in any the millions of years that she had ruled whole worlds-- had she suffered like this.  It twisted her insides and smoldered like embers in her throat.  It wasn't the wounds she was receiving from these pathetic excuses for warriors that the Wolf, Ram, and Hart were sending against them, for those hurts were nothing.  It was something she'd only just learned to name...grief...and something she hadn't.  Love. 

            Wesley had said he wouldn't teach her of love, but he had taught her of grief, and it had been repugnant to her, vile.  A waste, if nothing.  Mourning had made him so weak—at first.  He'd drunk poison that made him act strangely, made him dare to insult her without fear that she could end his life at any moment.  He'd sobbed silently in his sleep and cried out endlessly for what he could not have—his Fred.  It was disgusting to her.  It stank.  

She had hated all emotions once, or at least those that she could not comprehend.   She sensed them in others but thought herself above such trivialities, such aberrations. But in truth, she had always experienced feelings, especially those that suited her best.  Pride.  Power.  Triumph.  Rage.  She'd even known the gut-bruising sting of betrayal.  Once she had told Wesley that betrayal was neutral to her, unjudged and expected.  But had she not cried out the day she was murdered, sealed still struggling into a tomb and cast into the well to dissolve into dust—cried not only in fierce anger, but in hurt disbelief?  It was not rivals who had done that to her, as those ancient, near forgotten texts read.  It had been two of those she held closest—the only two that knew the secret of how to defeat her.  The only two she might have considered... friends.

            It was other emotions that had so disgusted her when she came back into the world, making her sicken and sneer.  Sorrow, love... these things showed weakness, and always had.  There was no place for them in the time she had lived, not even a definition for them.  But now they made her strong.  Wesley would have laughed at the irony of it all, she knew, but Wesley would not laugh again.  He was lost to her, and not even at the height of her power could she have brought him back again.  Grief screamed in her blood at the thought of it, and she harnessed it and did war.

            She carried no weapons into battle and needed none—none but the burning anguish that fueled her fists and feet and voice, for her bereft and rage-filled keening pierced the ears of the enemy and sent them to their knees.  She fought for Wesley, the fallen, her beloved.  She fought for Charles, whom Fred had loved, and who battled so bravely even as his life poured out.  He could not last, but he would never retreat.  She fought also for Winifred—even, at times, as her—for this fight would have been hers, too.  Fred would have battled this evil alongside her friends-- to save others, on the side of good, but Illyria gave this very little consideration.  In her day she had been beyond what she considered such mean trivialities—she had been neither good nor evil, only powerful.  She killed now to defend her companions, which was noble enough, but also for revenge, retribution.  Would Fred have sought such revenge?  Illyria was not certain.  Everyone spoke of Fred's goodness, her sweetness, her innocence.  She was so mourned because she'd been the best part of their little circle, warm and shining and loving.  That was true enough.  Even so, Illyria knew well of the dark part of her under the surface, small but still existent.  She had memories of one called Seidel, whom Fred had sought to destroy in retribution for his sending her to the hell called Pylea.  She had craved violence then as Illyria craved it now.

            Spike would understand, she thought, seeing him dispatch two demons easily.  He was fighting well, her half-breed pet, and she felt pride in him.  Had she still an army, she would have made him a favored warrior.  The leader Angel, whom Fred had adored but she herself had not yet been able to trust, stood strong as well.  But Charles… Charles was failing.  Whipping her head around, she saw him falter, stumbling against the alley wall with what looked to be his final steps.  A demon menaced him, and, snarling, she cut it down.  How _dare_ he try to harm _her _favorite… her…_what_?  For a flash of a moment, she thought she felt concern for him, too, and it caused her no shame, only confusion.  Was this Fred's concern—Fred's _love_—or her own?  It had been so simple to tell in the beginning, when Fred was still just a shell, not even worth the trouble of naming.  She was electrical impulses and fragments of memories and whispers of instincts, emotions.  Fred had consisted only of a whole, separate bank of habits and recollections that Illyria drew on as she chose.  Now... now the line between them was so blurred in places that she could not always tell the difference between them, or where stirrings within her came from.  It was more than memories; Wesley had said they were all more than memories.  What it was she didn't know.   All she knew was that her final words to Wesley as Fred were hers, too, as were the tears she'd never known she was capable of shedding. 

                Thought of her slain guide brought more tears pricking behind her cold eyes.  For  the second time that day, and the second time in her lifetime—she wept.  She'd existed for longer than time could record, lived seven lives at once—and she'd never mourned in any of them.  This time, though, the tears did not come slowly as they had in Vail's chambers; they sprang from her eyes, which were no longer icy and empty but a hot electric blue, glowing with a wild energy.  They hissed as they fell and sizzled into the hot rain.  Her face was twisted, her teeth bared.  She tipped back her head and roared in pain, bereft.  The burning tears blurred her eyes, mixing with the rain so that she could not see the enemy, the alley, the ground...  She could not see how they all shrank and grew smaller before her until the tops of the buildings scraped roughly against her sides.

For the first time since she had been re-born, the great Illyria could open her jaws. 

            Angel saw it first, and thought for certain that they were done for.  The demon in its huge size dwarfed the rooftops, but was moving swiftly on its talon-like feet despite being boxed in by the alley walls.  It was fierce in it's grace, half reptilian, half almost bird-like, with tentacle-arms thrashing.  The head could have almost been human, but it was hidden behind a metal helm.  Only sparking blue eyes, ominously narrow, glowed in the darkness that hid its face.

            Gunn, weakened, managed a stumbling turn towards Angel's sightline, and what little color he had left in his face drained until it was a sickly death-gray.  "What's happening?" he gasped out, unafraid but stunned.  "And where's Illyria?"  She'd been fighting staunchly by his side mere minutes before, but he'd lost sight of her in the roiling sea of demons.  Heaven knew they would need her now, though he doubted even she would last long against this.  Before her power had been drained, maybe—but not now.

            A picture had flashed into Angel's mind, one from an ancient text that Wesley had shown him.  "That's her," he stated in dread certainty.

            "What?"

            "That's Illyria."  He stared up at the towering creature, radiating with power, and for the first time understood all of the former goddess' insufferable arrogance, her high-handed pride that she wielded like a cudgel.  "It's her true form—her native form."

            Spike too was staring, shaking his head in disbelief and squinting into the hard rain.  "Ol' Blue's gone Jurassic on us," he uttered, trying to reconcile this monster image with that of the blue-haired demoness who had been his sparring partner, even something approaching a friend.  He'd liked getting under her skin, using pet names and rankling her just for fun.  "Funny, I was just starting to find her sort of attractive.  I think I'm bloody well off that now."

            Locked as they were in mortal combat with a demon horde, a joke hardly seemed appropriate, but they were in no danger for the moment. The battlefield had fallen completely still, but for the crashing movements of Illyria as she closed in.  The enemy were as thunderstruck as the three heroes, and held their weapons in fear-frozen hands. Even so, Angel's senses flashed a warning as the creature that was Illyria turned it's hidden face down over the demon army, the gesture seething with menace in its subtlety.

            "We've got to get out of here," he said, authority in his tone.

            "What?"  Spike shouted back over the rain, not comprehending how Angel could leave this fight that he had led them in.  "In case you haven't noticed, the odds have just turned in our favor!"

"Once she gets started she might not know the difference between us and them."   He worried also that she might just go on killing long after the last demon lay dead-- what was to stop her from conquering whatever stood in her path?  They certainly couldn't... but if it came to that, Angel knew that he would have to try.  "We take cover—for now."     

            The demons too wilted back and tried to retreat, terrified and trembling at the sight of the ancient goddess in her true form.  Once she'd led vast armies into battle, with thousands marching ahead simply to announce her arrival and strike fear into the hearts of those who dared oppose her.  It had been satisfying, but she needed none of that now.

            The army didn't stand a chance.

            They fell before her wrath like mown grass, foot soldiers and giants alike going down not singly, but in waves.  Hundreds were crushed beneath her as she moved, not even having the chance to attack.  The dragon she time-froze and then swatted from the air with an almost careless flick of one tentacle, dispatching it as easily as a human would a fly.  Blows rained upon her from fist and axe and sword, most glancing off her impenetrably thick scales and armor.  The few that did hit their marks stung, but in the way that an insect bite stings—more an annoyance than a real hurt.  And as she had vowed, she repaid every sting in full.

            Before the fight began she'd told Charles he had ten minutes left in him at best.  The entire battle lasted nine.  She fought until her eyes behind the dark helm glazed and blurred and she could no longer see what she was killing. She slashed and snapped at the empty air for another full minute until she realized that her limbs no longer made contact with the hated forms of her enemies. 

She'd destroyed them all.  Every last one.

            Lifting her face to the stars, she let out a victory cry that made the earth shudder, then realized she was shuddering, too—shaking.  The uncomfortable pressing weight of her grief still constricted in her chest, the cry failing to dislodge it.  Again and again she wailed, each becoming less and less a call a triumph and more and more one of despair.  She'd dealt all this death, but the death of Wesley closed again on her like a fog, refusing to let her go.  The world spun and she fell with it, helpless as her vision grew black.

            When it lifted, she was lying face down on the wet pavement, her form once again  human, trembling violently with spent fury, spent feeling.  She couldn't raise herself up and didn't try.  She was weak as she had been the day they had pulled her powers from her with the cannon, and couldn't yet process why she had managed to temporarily regain them.  She was weak as a kitten, leaden-limbed, completely soaked and half-drowned in the rain.

            It was an uncharacteristically cautious Spike who finally approached her, crouching down to place and hand on her shoulder.  A glass-sharp warning stopped his movement mid-way.

            "Do not touch me," she hissed, her voice like gravel in her throat.  She got to her feet without his assistance—her pride would not allow such a thing-- though her legs could barely support her and she nearly pitched forward no sooner had she risen.

            As she struggled to keep her feet, Gunn fell, the adrenaline that had been supporting his mortally-wounded body finally giving way.  Illyria's head whipped toward the sound, her eyes widening.  She was at his side in less than a moment and looking demandingly at Angel, who was examining the wounds.  Her mouth wanted to form the words to ask of his condition, but she could not allow such a thing—such _concern_—to be shown to all.  It was bad—or confusing—enough that she experienced it at all.

            Her feelings for Wesley were different.

            "He'll live," Angel said, voice low and grave but relieved.  "If we get him help soon enough."

            "Then get it," Illyria ordered, flinging out her hand in an instinctive gesture before even considering her drained condition.  Despite it, a portal appeared, swirling blue.  "This will take you wherever you need to go."  Spike and Angel didn't need another prompting, feeling somehow that she'd earned their trust.  Gathering Gunn over their arms between them, they leapt into the portal before it closed.  

            Illyria stood alone in the dark alley, surrounded by the wreckage of demon bodies, and simply watched the empty space for a moment.  The two vampires had not asked her why she did not accompany them, nor was it their business.  She had other matters to attend to.  Wesley's body still lay in Vail's chambers; she'd had to leave it before the battle.  But never would she allow it to stay there, wasting away like carrion in the house of the enemy who had killed him.  No.  He would have the rites of the best of her warriors, that she would make sure of.

            She would see to it that he was never forgotten.            

Chapter 2, "The Chooser of the Slain," will be up very soon.


	2. The Chooser of the Slain

Disclaimer:  Adele is mine, the rest are not.  I have not yet figured out how to do accent marks, so let me mention that the name is supposed to be the Old German version.  (You'd say it "Ah-Day-Luh" to put it non-phonetically.)

Author's Notes:  This, like the first chapter, is sort of a setting-up for the later action, hence the description of the Valkyries.  They are adapted from Norse mythology (and the Wagner operas) and changed somewhat to fit into the world of Angel.  I've tried to keep them mostly 'mythologically correct,' as it were.  (:    They seemed a good fit because of their connection with the death of heroes, and also because Norse mythology on the whole has a similar message as the show— you fight the good fight though defeat is certain.

Chapter 2:  The Chooser of the Slain

Illyria was not the first person to come to Wesley after he died, to see his body lying in the house of his killer.  Another had come, and, like the former goddess, was weary and exhausted from the battle.  Her fight had not been with fists or sword, but a very real fight nonetheless.

            Now she had other work to do.

She'd had a name once—Adele, the Nobel One—but it no longer mattered, for she was the last of her kind.  Her sisters were long gone.  They'd been hundreds once, charging out onto the battlefields on their flaming white steeds.  They'd been full of song-- songs of victory that cheered the warriors even as they died.

             They were the Valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain.

            Now she solemn and quiet and alone, and no one had believed in her in a long, long time.  She was a myth now, recorded only the stories of the old Norsemen, who had loved her, and in song.  She appeared as they believed she appeared: fair-skinned and blonde-haired, glorious in silver armor and holding a shield and spear that she hadn't used in millennia.  In this dim and dank room they barely shone at all, not like they had on the open battlefields of the North, where it had hurt the eyes to look on her approaching.  Even so, the heroes had greeted her with eyes wide open.  They'd looked to her eagerly, calling out with arms outstretched, for she offered the most glorious of prizes to them—a hero's death.  Only she and her sisters were able to bring the souls of the worthy dead to Valhalla, a paradise dimension that rewarded only the most valiant of men and women.

            In those days—and in the years preceding them-- she'd done more than act as a ferryman to the dead.  Once, she had truly been a Chooser of the Slain.  With her many sisters, she selected who in every battle should win... and who must die.  Together, their will shaped the destiny of worlds by the living and dying of men in war.  Now all the Valkyries had been slain themselves but her, many weakening first.  Men, as the years passed, no longer respected them as they once had, calling them Wish Maidens that one could force to do one's will by capturing them. 

            Adele had never allowed this to happen to her.  No one could change her will, and she did only what was right in her eyes.   

            Still, alone, she was so much weaker, her influence a mere sliver of what it had been.  She could watch over only a select few heroes now-- those on whose shoulders rested the fate of good-- and she intervened directly more than her sisters had ever done.  Even today she had aided the warriors of Angel, giving strength and also helping to preserve the life of the one called Gunn.  It had exhausted her, but the battle had been won.  Still, despite her power.... there were so many failures, beyond her control.  Slayers perished who should have lived on.  Courageous warriors fell who should have lived to fight another day.  Winifred, the loved one of this man who now lay before her, had been consumed despite all her efforts to stop it—to stop the rise of Illyria.  She'd poured wave upon wave of strength and healing on the brave Fred as she fought for her life-- and she'd fought so hard.  The young woman's spirit was as strong as any she had seen, at any time.  And yet Illyria had risen despite them both.

            That had not turned out a failure.  Not quite.  But it was a tragedy.  

            The death of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had not been a failure, either, or out of her control.  _His_ death she had chosen.  He'd been doomed to die and she'd let him die, but not before knowing that the evil that was Vail would be stricken from the world.  (In that, at least, Illyria had been predictable.)  More than anything, Wes' death was a mercy.  Since Fred had gone, his soul had been dying, despite how determinedly he fought at the end.  That had been sustaining human nature, admirable and nearly instinctual.  Now she'd come to bring him to peace and rest, in the halls of Valhalla with those of his comrades who'd gone before.  Cordelia would be there to greet him, and Doyle.  Someday Angel and Spike would join him as well.  He'd be happier there than he could be in his life-- with his love gone and a demon walking in her stolen body. 

            She approached him now, kneeling over his fallen form. He was laid out on the floor, his hands folded over the ugly wound that had killed him.  His eyes were closed, and he looked as peaceful as such a troubled man could, though no final smile appeared on his lips.  Strangely enough, he had a pillow under his head, as if the demoness who had arranged him there was tucking him in for a night's sleep.   She'd taken care with him, great care.

            Adele hadn't suspected that Illyria was capable of such tender consideration.  She'd known her (and she had always been a 'her,' despite all of the 'god-king' ranting)—only during the end of her reign across the dimensions, for while the Old Ones ruled with their armies there was no need for the Valkyries.  Their soldiers fought at the whims of their masters: for conquest, for power, and for nothing else.  Heroism did not exist until the first creature took up his weapon on the side of good, no matter that death would surely come.  A hero was never defeated, not even by death, because he never stopped resisting.  Angel had understood that when he led his comrades in battle.  The Old Ones, and the many rulers like them who followed—demon and human alike-- had never understood this.  They were probably not even able.

It had been they who killed many of the Valkyries, furious when their soldiers died and the sisters refused to reverse their decisions, bringing the fallen back to life.  They would fly into rages when a war was lost, spending their fury on murder.  Valkyries, who lived agelessly until they were killed, were formidable defenders, but one by one they had fallen.  Illyria, at least, had been less trouble than most—not because she was any less terrible or unreasonable—but simply because she had never cared enough about any of her slaughtered soldiers or even priests to demand their return. 

            Obviously she had cared now, about this Wesley.  It had been caused by stirrings of her new human form, perhaps, but nonetheless remarkable.  The mighty Illyria, who had ruled worlds once, had been laid low.  The one who had never had a heart had found her heart captured.... by a human.  It wasn't unheard of for an Immortal to love a human.  Two of Adele's sisters, Gudrun and Brynhild, had, and it had only ended in death.  Brynhild had given up her own life, burning on the funeral pyre of her lover.  Sacrifice. 

            But Illyria... it was nearly impossible to think of.

Though it _was_ making for some interesting talk around the inter-dimensional water cooler, that was for sure.

Adele knelt over the body, lying one hand over the solar plexus as she began to sing softly.  Her ear was turned to catch the whispering of his soul's response.  This song she sang now was meant not to lift the soul—not yet—but only to read it, seek its readiness.  She expected no struggle from this one.  Indeed, the first message she received was one seeking peace and comfort.  There was no horror at his own death, but a wizened acceptance.  _Rest_.  _Please—rest.  _Adele showed no surprise that her instincts had been right.  She showed no surprise either when another, louder message came, but her face fell in expected sadness. 

            _Fred.  I'm going where she is.  We'll be together.  Fred._

            His soul was seeking its mate, and Adele grieved at the thought.  Wesley had believed the sweet lie Illyria told him, for he'd wanted to believe it more than anything. 

            But Fred was the one thing the Valkyrie couldn't give him.  When he walked into the halls of Valhalla, he would not be reunited with his beloved, but not because her soul was destroyed, as those villains who arranged her death had said.  A soul was the strongest thing in the world, and indestructible.

            He would not see her there... because she still lived.


	3. The Second Battle

Author's Notes: First of all, thank you for all the reviews! I'm thrilled that you're interested in this story!

Secondly, the next few chapters were originally one long one, until I decided that the flow worked better with them separated. (Plus, more cliffhangers!) Hopefully I was right about that one! An added bonus is that the next two are practically written already, and so updates should be eminent.

And lastly, there are quotes taken directly from episodes of the show, indicated by italics. I don't always state directly who said them, but I'm assuming that we're all Angel fans to some degree and so won't be completely confused by them.

Chapter 3: The Second Battle

_Maybe it's not so much magical as chemical when two people are attracted. Maybe it's that the DNA knows what it needs, and when it finds it nothing can get in its way._

_It just takes it._

_--Fred, "Couplet"_

When Illyria burst upon the house of Vail, Adele was singing over the body of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. It was an old song, a Valkyrie song, one that had been sung millions of times in millions of years. It was strong, and sweet, and sad-- to some.

It was the song to lift the soul.

And Illyria had heard it many times. She knew what it was, and just as surely she knew that this time the song would not be completed. She would end it... _now._

"Touch him and die, Valkyrie."

--------------------

The song stopped. "Illyria," Adele acknowledged heavily, turning. She'd expected this confrontation with the tired air of one who has seen too much and so knows disaster is inevitable.

"Do not presume to speak my name!" the demon goddess snarled in a shout, more on instinct than anything else. This Valkyrie must know her place... and her place might well be on the floor with the headless body of Vail. Wesley's killers deserved no less, and she would soon decide if his blood stained the hands of this one as well. She knew what a Valkyrie was. Death-choosers, thieves of life and victory in battle.

But restorers of life as well.

And so she could not attack, not yet, not with her fists. She would make do with words—for now.

"I know your kind well. You appeared beautiful, but you were carrion-eaters," she spit out contemptuously, vitriol dripping from her words. "You flew over the battlefield to pick at the dead like the vultures you were."

"We never killed," Adele replied, seemingly not affected by the insult—though she found being referred to in the past tense vaguely unsettling. Clearly, millions of years asleep in the Deeper Well had done precious little in improving Illyria's social skills. Turning her head down towards Wesley, she continued, almost gently. "And so if you wish to cast blame for this death, you'll not find it here."

She may as well not have spoken at all. Illyria's head lifted sharply in a provoked surge of rage. "But you CHOSE him!" she accused, her voice thundering.

"Yes." The Valkyrie was calm, infuriating the former monarch further. How _dare_ she admit such a crime as if it were nothing! Did she not know the name of Illyria, and what she could do to her in punishment!? This death-chooser did not even acknowledge her anger by raising her voice herself. She knew that Illyria had no power to bring back life—a god of war and death, she never had—and she was _gloating_, rubbing it in her face, deliberately rousing her ire. She would pay dearly for that... after she had done what Illyria wanted.

"Then you will restore him," she commanded, voice deep and flat and cold. There was death in that voice, icy threat in her eyes

"I can't. My decision has been made."

Illyria's eyes flew open wide, any thought of restraint lost. Wesley was what she wanted, and this single, pathetic death-maiden stood between them like a wall, like a fortress. She knew what she'd done with those things in her day. She'd destroyed them. Completely.

"Reverse your decision. We killed your kind easily for such refusals."

It wasn't true—entirely-- but the Valkyrie made no argument. Argument with Illyria was pointless, and very dangerous, though an attack was probably inevitable no matter the case. She wasn't afraid; that was a sensation she had not experienced for longer than she could remember. Being the last of her kind had never given her a sense of desperation. She lived and fulfilled her purpose, but should she die she would go to Valhalla, reunited with her sisters at last. It gave her an air of weary boldness, knowing that neither life nor death held any terror for her.

Not that she had any intentions to invite the latter.

"You could kill me, yes," she agreed evenly. "But I warn you that it would bring you nothing. There isn't a witch or conjurer or spell in this world that can bring Wesley back to you. My choice of death can't be reversed—not even by myself—while the reason for my decision still exits. It's a law as old as the Valkyries themselves."

Illyria let the truth of the words glance off her, as the weapons of her enemies had glanced off her armor in battle. She cared nothing for these excuses. "I'll do it myself, then," she challenged. "I'll rip time apart if I have to, and cut off your decision before the foul words can leave your mouth."

Adele recognized that for what it was—an idle threat. Illyria was only posturing, unwilling to show any weakness. Of course she had already tried to turn back the clock to supercede Wesley's death— she'd tried it from the very moment she realized her powers had been restored. She'd failed. Again and again. She didn't know why yet, but Adele did, and she struggled with the idea of telling her. Even had she succeeded in moving time backward, however, it would have done no good. So long as Fred was gone the choice of Wesley's death must remain as well, and Fred's demise was one thing that Illyria could not undo through time. It was impossible, for she would destroy herself in the process.

It was dangerous business, stating these facts openly to Illyria herself, and so Adele chose not to complicate matters further. "You can no longer alter time," she stated simply.

Illyria's reaction was immediate and fierce. Once again the Valkyrie dared too much, insulting and taunting her with reminders of her lost powers. In the old days Illyria had killed for less insolence than this, and her hands twitched into fists.

_You'll have to learn to change. You must not kill._

Wesley had said that. The memory bolted into her mind before she could stop it. It was not so strange, really, that his words came to her now. But he had killed. He had killed Knox, whom he said murdered Winifred. He stabbed Charles. He'd tried to kill she herself when she came. Because of them, Fred had died.

_Does that make it just?_

_No, it wasn't just. _

Killing Vail had been just, necessary. Illyria felt no remorse for that, nor for the thousands of enemy demons who now lay tangled and dead in the dark rain-drowned alley. But this Valkyrie.... she could not decide if she was more guilty for what had befallen Wesley, or not guilty at all. Either way she forced herself to damper her boiling emotions. She could not harm this one, for there was awful truth in her words. She was her only hope of bringing Wesley back from death. And Illyria would make her do it. In this she would not fail.

"You must see very little," she scoffed. "I did so tonight, and I'll do it again."

"You did." Adele paused, looking at Illyria, trying to read her. What she had to say would not be taken easily. "But you don't know why. Why you regained your powers in the fight but now..." She trailed off at the demoness' freezing glare. The truth must be told, but Adele was not looking forward to fending off Illyria's reaction. "It was the strength of your feelings that drew them to you, and allowed you to expel them quickly enough to keep from self-destructing. It was emotion which empowered you—making you as strong as you have ever been. Perhaps even stronger. But there's more. Your powers were sent to a far-off pocket universe when Wesley drew them from you with the generator. Someone had to retrieve them, and send them towards you—measured, so that you drew only what you would use at once and would not self-destruct. And that someone... was I myself."

"Impossible," Illyria spat immediately, but she was stunned and shaken-- which made her look like she'd been hit hard in the chest. She looked away, collecting herself, then shot her gaze back. "Why?"

It was a heavy question. Why would she aid an Old One, whose kind had murdered her sisters, and whose return she had so struggled to stop? Despite the fact that she'd fought on the side of good this once, her place in the world was still uncertain at best. "It was the only way the war could be won. Without you all would have been lost, and you could not have prevailed without your former strength."

Adele knew that something was wrong as soon as she'd said the words. Illyria was taking this far too calmly, though she was beginning to tremble, her fists clenching and flexing. Perhaps she'd decided that the truth of her lost abilities was absolute, and useless to fight against. She rather doubted it.

Loathing seethed through Illyria's bared teeth as she replied some long moments later. "I owe you nothing," she finally said, imperious.

"That's true. My part in your re-empowerment was very small. But… it was a necessary part… and also temporary."

"And so I cannot regain them again without you."

Adele let the question hang in the air, but knew she had to answer. "Yes."

That's when the fire flew into Illyria's eyes, and the Valkyrie knew she was probably going to die.


	4. The Cause of Death

Chapter 4: The Cause of Death

The first smash of Illyria's fist against her silver shield nearly sent Adele reeling, and the following rain of blows almost dropped her to her knees. She tipped her head back and the shining glow of Valhalla filled her eyes, knowing as she did that very soon she would be walking its halls. In Illyria's iced eyes she expected to see the fury of her own death, and she pulled her gaze downward to look.

It was not there. Realization struck her as heavily as the kicks and punches she warded off.

Illyria was not trying to kill her.

Had she been, Adele would have been dead by now, even with the mystically-strong shield that protected her. She would be like Vail, the most powerful of sorcerers, who now lay shattered on the floor of his own chambers from the Old One's wrath. The former goddess was only overwhelmed, striking out from her own helplessness. She attacked as one whose last option has been cancelled out—desperately.

Even as she battered away at the heavy shield, Illyria felt the heat of murder slip away from her. The Valkyrie maiden was not fighting back, only defending herself. Not now, nor had she ever, killed any creature who would not attack in kind, or who had not done something, in her eyes, to deserve such punishment. By the standards of her world she had been honorable in that way at least, though not moral. Unlike many of the Old Ones, she had accepted bloodless surrender. She would kill to punish, to discipline, to mete out vengeance. She would destroy those who resisted her, or who dared to challenge her glory. It could take the slightest of offences to warrant death, if her mood so dictated, but never by her own judgment did she kill for nothing. By human standards her actions were evil, but it was not, in her time.

But slaughtering those who let themselves be slaughtered, who had done nothing at all against her… that was a wrongful act to her even then. There was a reason she was beloved above all the others. Now, as much as she tried to pour blame on the Valkyrie for all her losses, to use it like fuel on a fire, she found she could not. The maidens chose death because it was what they had been born to do, as she in her day had been born to rule all. She'd known of a time when they were forced to choose one of their own sisters to die—it was not a task they took pleasure in, or could avoid. But even had Adele been cleared in all cause of Wesley's demise, she had still slighted Illyria's presence, and that had once been enough cause for a death-punishment. Why she could not go through with it now, Illyria couldn't understand—only that it was so.

She hit the shield three more times, but that was all, and, as she had the day she found the ruins of her kingdom, she sank to her knees. Her frustration was spent, like an angered child who has cried and stormed all she can but then knows it can do no good. She was still helpless, powerless, and she raged against the feeling. Wesley was gone, and the one hope she'd had for restoring him—beating the Valkyrie into submission—could not work, for even with her death the decision could not be taken back. If there was any other way she didn't know it, and if she could not find it, she would fail. Hated human emotions were stealing in again, grief making her feel weak. Her spirit felt broken and her hands were broken, too. Her knuckles had been crushed against the shield, and she felt blood seep and pool beneath the thick, rubbery leather of her gloves. The smashed joints shrieked out with pain, but it was nothing to the hurt of her defeat.

Adele approached with the greatest of caution, touching the goddess' battered hands with the flat of her spear. At once they mended, leaving Illyria wondering at the draining away of the pain. She flexed her fingers experimentally, and then dropped them again.

"A token of peace," she stated, hollow. The Valkyrie inclined her head once in agreement, but the gesture went unseen. Illyria had turned her nearly unblinking gaze to Wesley now, staring for what seemed like minutes. She wanted to go to him, to hold him again as she had when he died, but it was impossible. Though she could not control these emotions that washed over her, she would not put them on display for the death-maiden to see. Thinking on that, she leapt to her feet again, though her heart was not in it.

When she spoke, her words were soft, difficult to hear. Desolate. "Why did you choose him?" she asked, still careful that her phrase did not sound like the question it was. Wesley had been the only one she would openly seek knowledge from. Questions admitted that her knowledge was not infinite, that she needed something of someone. The thought was unbearable. "Why not the half-breeds, why not Charles?"

It took some moments before Adele could answer, puzzling as she was over the startling change that had settled over her recent opponent. Was this simply the calm before another storm? Illyria was clearly aching with sorrow despite her proud restraint, and for the first time Adele could sense the spark of humanity that had managed to light itself in her. She'd seen this kind of sorrow before, in women whose loved ones had been lost. She remembered widows and lovers, their men slain in battle, who could not bear the grief and so followed their beloveds into death, leaping onto their funeral pyres. Though they couldn't agree with it, the sisters had taken pity on them, carrying them to Valhalla as well so that they would be reunited with their loves. Adele felt the same pity stealing over her now. Her heart ached, too. If this were all some trick of Illyria's, if she had been badly taken in, she would pay for such soft feelings. But they came nonetheless.

"It was not their time to die," she answered at last, gently. "Wesley's soul cried out for rest, and he was meant to leave the world heroically."

"He told me that he did not intend to die," Illyria countered. Her tone was guttural, harsh but pained. Fro the first time in several minutes her gaze left Wesley's slain form and turned to the Valkyrie once again. "You made a mistake."

"It's in the nature of all heroes to keep going no matter what– it's in the nature of most humans, too. For him to give up on his own life, to refuse to fight any longer, would go against everything he was and all that he stood for. It would go even against his own humanity. It would be wrong for him to seek his own death. One has to go on, for that is the nature of life."

Illyria nodded, understanding-- understanding far more than anyone could know. This world was so small and suffocatingly bleak to her, and she was trapped in it, less than a shadow of her former glory. No matter how much she allowed herself to adapt she would always struggle, and struggle alone. Wesley had become the one ray of light in her existence, but even that was snatched away. There was no escape but death and the endless sleep of the Well, and yet she continued to walk on.

"I am bound by laws, Old One," Adele continued. "I cannot choose death at my own whim, for my own reasons. Even at the height of our power, the Valkyries could not do this. Such power corrupts. You know that well." The demoness seemed to acknowledge this. She had indeed seen it happen to many rulers, and many times. "I can only do what is just, what is fitting for each soul. Wesley's soul was dying."

"Because of Fred." The statement was flat, unflinching.

"Yes, though it was more than that. His life had so much pain, one devastation after another. Winifred was the one bright, good thing he had, his hope for everything. When he lost her, he didn't lose only his beloved. She was all of what was good in the world to him- the good that he fought for, lived for."

_Is there anything in this world but grief?_

_There's love. There's hope... for some._

"He deserved such deliverance from pain and so I gave him what he could not rightly take for himself. I _had to_ give it to him. How is it that I can restore him, only for more suffering, when he could be in paradise?"

Illyria blinked, once. The Valkyrie had spoken truly and she knew it. She knew it with the core of herself, more than she could let herself think on. She should leave this place now and take Wesley's knife-torn body with her as she had intended. She should honor his memory but let his soul rest, and think no longer on bringing him back. Her mind was already working through her drained defeat, thinking of other ways that it might be done, but she should put a stop to it and leave him in peace.

But then she would still grieve.

_"I'm watching human grief. It's like offal in my mouth."_

_"... you'll taste it every day, every second."_

Once again her face hardened. No. She would not have this _grief _with her any longer, smothering her like a shroud, tearing at her insides. It had been useful in their battle but had no place in her now. Who knew how long it might last... perhaps even forever. Wesley had never stopped mourning Fred. In time he was able to stand, and walk, and pretend to be alive again, but his loss of her had never lifted. Had he lived he would have gone on, perhaps even learned to laugh again, but Illyria knew that he would never be happy. The Valkyrie had said it well-- he'd had too much of pain in his life. Fred had been the light in his existence as Wesley had been in Illyria's own, and when that light was snuffed out the last of his hope was gone. Even the strongest man was fragile, and could only take so many beatings before his spirit broke into pieces.

_We are so weak._

_Yes, we are._

If she brought him back he would grieve still. She would be trading her anguish for his.

It wasn't right. The deepest human part of Illyria knew it was not right.

But then the oldest part of her screamed that she did not care.

Wesley was _hers_, as armies and palaces and temples and _lives_ once had been. In her day, she had never lost what belonged to her, and if any creature had dared to try, she marched against him and destroyed him. Destroying the Valkyrie would do no good, and that knowledge had temporarily tricked her into a sense of defeat. Even so, she would get what she wanted. What she required was a new plan, a new weapon. Destruction was all she had known, but she would have to think more deeply now. She'd resort to human cunning—sneakiness—if she had to.

The only way to reverse the death-decision was to reverse the cause.

Fred's death. Impossible.

Or was it?

_You may not think you're as powerful as you were, Highness. But looking like Fred-- for some of us-- is the most devastating power you have..._

Spike's words. She'd known she liked him.

Now she knew all at once what she would do, and it was difficult to keep a knowing smile from curving her mouth. How different she felt now, the heaviness of that pathetic grief flying before her like wind-blown rain.

Her head tipped oddly, making her look, as she had been to Wesley, disarmingly inquisitive. "I lied to him of this paradise," she said, circling the Valkyrie slowly, testing her reactions. "I told him he would be with Fred."

Adele's eyes followed her, never breaking contact. She'd noticed the new initiative in the demoness' actions, and knew with weariness that their battle was not over. "He won't," she replied, sadness showing itself clearly despite her effort to keep even.

Illyria's voice dropped, intense. "Then will it be paradise to him?"

She couldn't stop a smile then, noticing how the death-chooser tried to hide a startled reaction.

"It will be the best paradise—the only one—that can be offered," Adele replied as steadily as she could.

"No," Illyria answered, her voice thick and low. She stopped her circling and strode now to Wesley, standing beside him with a barely-hidden look of triumph. "I can offer better."

The change took only seconds.

"I can give him Fred."


	5. The Offer

Author's Notes: Once again, thank you for the reviews. They are keeping me motivated with this! It seems as if this story is going to have more chapters than I thought, but the big cliffhanger is coming next chapter...

Chapter 5: The Offer

The Valkyrie stood silent as the visage of Fred spoke to her, and her stomach wrenched. The woman before her in every way mirrored Winifred... but Illyria seeped out over the surface like a molten pool. Her eyes were dark now, but there was none of the young woman's warmth shown there, no spark of life. They were dull, not shining as Fred's had, and hard with challenge. In their way they were as emotionless and vaguely reptilian as Illyria's herself, though lizard-black rather than freezing blue. No color showed in her face, and there was not even the same healthy sheen in her hair. She looked like the shell that her body had been reduced to, with the emotionless gaze that was Illyria. As if reading her thoughts, Illyria-in-Fred smiled—Fred's happy, open smile. It softened her face but rang horribly false, like instruments clashing out of tune. How it must have ripped the heart from Wesley to see this.... except at the end.

Adele had not expected this move from Illyria, and was sure her face showed it. This was a devastating counter in what was obviously a battle plan, waged to bring Wesley back like a spoil of war. It was not surprising, not from an Old One. But Adele had no intentions of playing these games.

"You said that he could not be returned while the cause of his death still existed," Illyria spoke in her own voice, every word a test. "I can live this way for him—as Fred. When you wake him, he will not know what has been done." She smiled again, almost lopsided-edly, giving her best approximation of Fred as she delivered the final blow. Her tone lifted, sweetened, took on the slightest trace of a Texan accent. "I'll take him far, far away from here. We'll be happy."

She'd take him to another dimension if need be, the demoness thought as she watched the Valkyrie react to the façade as if she'd been struck in the face. It wasn't romanticism—it was necessity. If she and Wesley remained, Spike or Angel would know the truth in an instant—they would know the lie by its scent—and the demon Lorne, were he still present, would know as well. No... she would take him away to somewhere safe, somewhere with no one who could root up her secret.

The death-chooser was silent for so long that Illyria spoke again, seeing her opponent's lack of acknowledgement as resistance. "He'll have peace," she finished, her own voice again, feeling her words deeply. She wondered, briefly, if she would have peace as well. It was doubtful at best-- but then, she had not been born into the world for peace, and had never known it.

While Illyria supposed that Adele was reeling over her startling change to Fred's persona, that was not the truth. The Valkyrie had seen Wesley's death after all, seen Illyria portray Winifred much more convincingly. More than portray. She had been Fred for him, then. It was a mercy to a dying man, a man that, in spite of all this selfish battling, Adele knew Illyria loved—or loved as much as it was possible for her to understand. It was the offer she now made for that man that had knocked the wind from her lungs. For the former world-ruling demon to live as Fred, every day for years, with the last of her powers given up...

"Do you know what you offer?" Adele asked at last, unable to hold the question back. She'd tried to stay back from Illyria's struggle, to avoid engaging in the conflict at all. Wesley was gone, and that was as it was. It could not be negotiated, no matter how Illyria pushed for it. Still, this was too much.

The Valkyrie's question entered Illyria's mind and echoed there, filling her with doubt. It was, and had always been in her nature to attack first and ask questions later—or not at all-- and so she had done now. She'd thought only of Wesley's return when she made her proposition, thought only of a way to convince the Valkyrie to change her verdict. Becoming Fred was an effective weapon and so she had used it. Not until the death-maiden questioned her did she realize the gravity of her offer— its very selflessness. It was strange, truly, as her motives had been as selfish as any had ever been—but yet it was so. If she carried this out, she would live a lie every day, and never again could she proudly declare the name of Illyria. She would be forced to put away even the smallest of her powers, to speak from a face that was not hers and in a voice that did not match her. She would be trapped even more firmly in a body that could not in the least express her grace. No longer would she wield her might in battle, for Fred had not been a warrior—not of that kind who fights with the sword. She had fought in a different way, with her mind, and Illyria would have to learn this as well, drawing on the well of Fred's knowledge more than she ever had before. She would have to draw on that well so often and so deeply that she might lose all of herself that was left.

Once she had said that living without her power was a fate worse than death, and so might this be. Yet she'd chosen to live on, 'adapting' rather than letting herself perish as her true self. Thinking on it twisted like nettles in her gut, but it didn't make it less true. But to do this would be so much more—too much. She was beginning to regret her words, and yet she could not dismiss them. This vile grief was causing her to act strangely.

At least in this way she'd be rid of it. This she knew, though it might turn out that being trapped in the life of another was far worse than anything this foul emotion could do to her. But she would have something else to repay her, to fill her life.

She'd have Wesley's love. It would not be meant for her, but she would have it nonetheless.

She'd offered to make Fred come alive for him that day—had it only been hours before that he was still living?—and it was not only for him that she did it. His perfect day—she'd known what it would be, and she wanted it, too, against everything she had been and knew. Had she not looked away in disappointment, knowing he would refuse her... and not even troubled herself to hide it from him? The memory tasted metallic and bitter in her mouth. Once she would have vomited it into the dust. Now there was only regretful acknowledgement. She loved Wesley, even though until that day she'd had no idea what that meant, and still did not understand it. She hated that she loved him, but she did. Overpoweringly. Like her grief, she couldn't control it.

It helped to think that it was only echoes of old love, Winifred's memories trapped within her—but she did not know if this was so. It helped also to tell herself that this was only worship that she craved, and that she deserved. Wesley was as loyal as any priest she'd had, and she knew from Fred's recollections that he was the sort of man whose love could border on worship. He'd held Fred as something so much higher than himself, showing it in every word of admiration, every look, gaze, touch. And yet it was not only this that she wanted. Her craving was very human, too.  
She knew from Winifred's memories that humans could sicken and die without touch, without feeling and contact.[1] Fred had agonized in Pylea that she would waste away in her cave from skin-hunger—the only contact she'd had in years being the strikes and blows of slavers. It was little wonder that her mind had slipped. Illyria, demon pure but housed in a human shell, was suffering from the same hunger. It made it easier to bear, at least, knowing that it was beyond her, due to the cursed requirements of the race she'd been partly re-born into.

Or was it, really, only that?

She remembered earlier that day, as Wesley cradled her, washed the blood from her face, healed her injuries. She'd never been touched gently before- - not before in her millions of years of rule, and not after her re- appearance in the world. The bite of the axe and the crush of a fist were what she had known, and what she had dealt. And so she'd watched every movement of his hands, and her ageless, unblinking eyes had closed, fluttering—not with pain, as it had appeared—but with the strength of awakening feelings as they washed over her. It was strange that he could be so tender, when the day before he would not even acknowledge her presence. 'Watch over her for me,' he had said, as if he cared. She_ cared_ that he cared, and that disturbed her. Concern was once something she took for granted, and that she did not reciprocate. Knox, her former priest, had given his whole life for her, and how had she repaid him but to kick his lifeless body across the floor like battle fodder.  
Wesley, as always, was different.

Her hatred turned on herself a little at that, even as she looked at him lying there in death. What was she becoming, that she would turn herself inside out for what had once been muck under her feet?  
  
_I am Illyria, god-king of the primordiam, shaper of things. _

_I am the divine embodiment of war.  
  
I am the ecstasy of death.  
_  
She blinked, looking at the death that brought her anything but ecstasy.  
  
_And I reek of humanity.  
_  
Human. She was becoming _human_  
  
Never.  
  
She could get around this. She could live as Fred only long enough to secure Wes' return, then revert to her true self. If the Valkyrie made the mistake of thinking to choose him again, she would be killed, as would anyone else who threatened him.  
  
_I am not what you want.  
  
No.  
_  
She would lose his love, that was true. For him to love her was impossible, for she had killed his beloved. He'd been much gentler about it as time went on—replacing the word 'murdered' with 'infected'-- but in the end Fred was gone and all was the same. But Illyria thought she could live with that. He would not love her, but he would be hers again, as he had been before.

And his soul would die again and again-- a little each day, with only stacks of books and gallons of whisky to numb the pain.

She went to him now for the first time, kneeling first, then taking the upper part of him into her arms as she had when he lay bleeding his life out. Her appearance was still that of Fred, and she wore it as an actor would a mask. It gave safety, freedom. Only in this mask could she allow herself to show such affection in front of another, and even then she would have been loath to do it. Somehow she knew that her answer would come like this. For a moment she forgot the watching Valkyrie and ran the backs of her fingers over his face. It was stiff and cold with death, but she didn't draw away.

It was then that something changed in her, and this was for him now, not for winning. She should let him go, and yet she couldn't. She was not that selfless and never hoped to be. But to give away the last shards of her glory and live as Fred...she did not know if she could do such a thing. Old Ones did not yield; they did not sacrifice. It would be an abomination to everything she was.

She looked into his face and knew she had no choice.

"I know what I offer," she declared. "Now restore him."

----------------------- [1] This is actually true, though I don't remember the scientific term for it. Just thought I'd throw that out there, so you know I'm not using over- flowery imagery. Oh, PLEASE tell me I'm not venturing into Illyria fluff—which is probably a door best left unopened.


	6. The Price

Chapter 6: The Price

Illyria faced the Valkyrie with her offer. The death-maiden said nothing, and after many long moments still looked as if she was struggling to accept or even absorb it. Her silence was disconcerting, making the demoness feel as if her motives were being sifted.

"Don't think I do this only for him," she threw out with her usual stoic superiority. "It is an advantage to me as well."

Whether or not that was true Adele could not discern, but she saw well enough the thick veneer of pride the demon-goddess had painted over it. Finally she spoke, though still searching for appropriate words. "What you offer is… commendable," she acknowledged, knowing as she said it that it wasn't quite right. A life of lies—commendable? And yet the gesture was, in its way, for all the selfishness that lingered below the surface. Commendable was too weak a word for it, looked on in that way. "But it cannot work."

Illyria's head snapped up, sending blue pigment shooting through the strands of her hair and tinting the outlines of her face. "Why?" she demanded, herself again, rising and curling her body over Wesley's as a feral look leapt wildly into her features. She looked ready to pounce—her back stretched out long and arched—as if she were an animal protecting a kill. Adele looked at her and remembered countless women from every age, up to their elbows in drying blood, growling and weeping over the slain bodies of their lovers as if daring anyone away from touching them. She could see herself, so many years before, crouching over the murdered form of her last sister with the same fierce madness rimming her eyes. The last of their number to die had been the youngest and most gentle of all of them—a sweet-singing darling who had hated the battlefield and held each dying hero in her lap to comfort him as he left the world. Every Valkyrie had sworn to protect her, their most beloved… and it had been Adele who was left with the weight of their failure. The girl's name—Radgridr—had meant peace, but that had meant little to the demon warlord who butchered her.[1]

Yes, Adele could understand. She understood so well but knew that if she responded with too soft a heart, she yet might meet her end with Illyria's fist through her face.

Though one of things she had not seen, looking at the mourning ex-goddess, was Illyria as the monster she had been, all those millions of years ago. So much remained, but to see her like this...

"I… might have done this for you," she replied, torn between sympathy and the knowledge that a plan of deception—however well intended—could not be right. "If I could. But it can't work. He would know the deception, and so nothing would change with his soul."

"Think of it, Illyria," she persuaded, moving towards the suffering goddess with palms open. "Winifred's mother, who knew nothing of you, could sense the difference when you acted as Fred. Would Wesley see less? She was his soul mate, Illyria. He would know."

'I won't accept a lie.'

"And he would hate me for it," Illyria intoned darkly, her mind turned so inward that she took no offense at the Valkyrie's use of her name. She stared away into nothing as if she could see the truth there, and then let that truth seep into her. Of course he would know, no matter what she did. Her desire to see him brought to life again was muddling thoughts that once would have been clear.

"Perhaps. He might understand what you tried to do… but it would hurt him."

"He would hate me," Illyria repeated, her voice scraping like ground glass in her throat.

_'Never. You—like this—it sickens me.'_

_'Don't be her. Don't ever be her.'_

He would despise her and she knew it. Then she would fume and storm at his ingratitude but do nothing in retaliation. They would both drink of misery.

"What I offer would not be enough." Her stare was blank but not empty.

"No, it would not give back what was taken from him," the Valkyrie assented, drawing an immediate black look.

"What _I _took from him," Illyria corrected harshly. She could sense a new emotion—a guarded sympathy—radiating from the death-maiden, and she wanted none of it. Sympathy, she had found, was an indicator of common experience, and of using that experience for counsel. Those who required such comfort were weak, and she would never claim weakness. But tired-- she suddenly felt so tired, and she turned her head down to Wesley. The words she spoke then were so low that Adele was not certain whose ears they were meant for—if anyone's.

"I would not have taken Fred for my shell had I known."

She did not explain further, explain _what_ she now knew: how fragile the shell had turned out to be, how hard Fred's loved ones had fought her for it. How taking this shell had killed Wesley... Forgetting herself, she pressed one finger to his face, but the thick glove-armor she wore blocked all sensation. She felt nothing at all that way, but inside she felt regret. She did not think she felt guilt, an emotion which she did not understand. Angel languished in guilt, which made little sense to her. Had he not done his crimes as a soulless vampire, to whom killing is nature? Likewise she had not chosen her shell, not even the new species she would be born into. The idea of becoming human was detestable; she had not wished it. And if she had, what would that have been to her? In her day, humans had been as insects were in this one—slugs that crept upon the earth—and killed without conscience.

But regret she truly felt, over so much. "I'm no longer certain I would have come back into the world at all," she added. Not like this. Not as things were now.

She was looking down into Wesley's face-- speaking to him, speaking to herself—aware that the Valkyrie could hear as well but doing nothing to shield her words. She'd revealed similar thoughts to Drogyn not so long before, and he'd had the same status as this death-chooser— one who should be an enemy but for whom her desire to fight had left her. Perhaps it was that they were all—the three of them—old, old beings.

Her gaze turned downward as it was, she did not see the Valkyrie's own eyes leap with new fire as the admission left her mouth. For the first time, the maiden would engage, not simply defend. Now there was something that _she_ wanted, and she did not wait to tell what it was.

"Then give Fred back, Illyria."

--------------------

Adele had been expecting a violent affront, but it didn't come. The demoness rose to her feet but there was no indignant lash of threats or fists.

She couldn't know that Illyria had already thought of all this.

"It's not possible," the ex-goddess informed her, a weary imperiousness returning to her voice. It was an insult, after all, to imply that she would do such a thing for a mere human, and she could not let that insult go utterly unrecognized.

_'You seek to save what's rotted through. I am bound to this carcass, this I could not change even if I cared to.'_

"I am bound to this shell—to Fred. Do you not think I would have left it already if I could? To find a demon body more capable of expressing my glory and containing my strength?" Her unblinking gaze turned aside. "One whose existence would not be so... complicated."

It came to her then that this Valkyrie may be able to extract her from the shell, doing what she herself could not. Even so, it made little difference. Without her essence, Fred's body—what was left of it—would collapse like the empty corpse it was, or if it did not it would at the least be useless. It was filled now with Illyria's own crystalline function system, modified to fit her human form but still uniquely her. Though she bled human blood and could sense human touch, inside she was alien.

Those were mere trivialities, anyhow, to what was important. The crux of the matter was that there was nothing left of Fred to fill the shell with-- nothing but the electrical impulses that activated her memories and that elusive something that she could not name. Everything else was destroyed, of that Illyria was assured.

But Adele had no intention of drawing out Illyria's essence, and neither would any sorcerer or witch in the world do so. The problem lay in exposing the essence. There was no telling but that the essence might again take on a parasitic nature once released—and become airborne. Countless numbers of people and creatures alike could die in unnamable pain as Illyria ripped into them and took residence, and it would start with the extractor. Adele, unlike some of the Valkyrie number, could not read the future to see if this would be so. She could not risk it.

But there was another way, though much more difficult.

"I do not mean that you should give back the shell," she explained. "That I can provide."

The statement was full of assurance, but in truth she was not certain at all that she could accomplish what she claimed—to make an exact copy not only of Winifred's outer shell, but her mind's contents with it. While possible, it was far beyond the usual extent of her strength, and after channeling Illyria's power mere hours before she was near exhaustion. She'd learned the skill on the fields of war, restoring heroes too gravely wounded to continue in their own bodies but desperately needed to assure victory. It had been so long, and she was weary, but she knew she had to try before this web of life and death she and Illyria were weaving went any further.

"This will not hurt you," she told the demoness, and began the song that was needed. The stale air about Illyria trembled and she tensed. The song stopped, only for an instant, as Adele explained further. "This will make the new shell."

The air at once was disturbed at the sound of the song, running in shimmering-blue liquid waves behind the point of the Valkyrie's spear. She drew it in a wide arc over Illyria, who hissed and looked to attack until she realized no pain sounded alarm in her body. It felt only oddly stretched, as painless sparking fingers of electricity found their way into each cell and fibre and tiny chromosome of her being. Those fingers tugged and searched, finding all that was Fred, then drew away with their duplicates of information. Her eyes widened and pupils shrank as she watched similar lines of hot blue energy arc and curve from her head—each spark containing infinite trains of sounds, sights, recollections, knowledge. Memories. Illyria knew she was seeing those very impulses that had connected her to her shell, just as she had once called them to the surface with a spark between her fingers. She would not allow them to be stolen from her, but when she quickly searched her own mind she found that they had not been thieved away at all. The lines of electricity she saw were copies, exact copies.

Beside her now, ever growing in a swirling mass, was a human form, connected to her own with the millions of spidery energy-veins. Illyria looked into the biting–bright glare and could see bones assembling, long and light and looking nearly bird-hollow. In their protective cage she could discern the beginnings of human organs, ones which she herself did not need and that had liquefied in Fred's body during the hollowing-out. How was it that they could be re-made now? She did not understand (though Winifred would have) about DNA and the blueprints for life it held, but that made the process all the more remarkable. It was impressive to her, this power. She could not deny that if she wished to. This Valkyrie maiden had strength beyond what Illyria had credited her with.

That strength of Adele's was quickly draining away, the process taxing her almost beyond endurance. She clutched onto her now ground-planted spear, not just trembling but shaking convulsively in an effort to remain on her feet. Her eyelids trembled too over tightly-closed eyelids. All her effort had to go to her song— and still she sang, though the tune was nearly lost amid shuddering intakes of breath. She was weakening fast now, but she had to keep singing just a moment longer...

With a lung-burning gasp the song stopped. It was done.

She dropped, stumbling against her spear's long handle, just as the form of Winifred Burkle—perfect and perfectly inanimate-- fell crumpled at Illyria's feet.

The demoness stared hard at this form that Wesley had so desired. It was dressed as it had been at her death, and just as then no breath of life flowed or heartbeat sounded. The body was in every way Fred's, every line and plane identical to the most minute and unseen details-- from the flecks of color in the now-closed eyes, to the scar over one shoulder where a grappling hook had torn through during a demon fight. Inside were organs just like those Fred had before, only new, and they would function the same. The metabolism would still be blindingly fast, and the fingernails would still grow (as she had thought) agonizingly slowly. If this body ever had life again and one day reproduced, the child would carry her traits. Spike or Angel, were they present, would know its scent as hers, and Fred herself would not have been able to tell the difference between the new and the old.

All that was nothing compared to the intricacies of the new mind. It contained everything it had before and some it hadn't—the newly-released memories of a boy called Connor. The most complex of physics equations were there, as were the very briefest of recollections. Habits, quirks, speech patterns... everything restored. This mind could bring up the comforting book-sterile scent of the community library where Fred had spent so many hours as a child, and recall the outfit she had worn on her first proud day of school. It would know that she liked sharp cheddar for her tacos, not mild. It would remember Pylea and still feel the metallic tang of rising panic on her tongue. It could call up the feeling of every kiss she and Wesley had shared, and hurt with the remembrance and heartbreak and loss.

And yet— for all its perfection in mind and form, it had no more life—and little more humanity—than the cold tile floor it lay upon.

Illyria still stood staring, cold and unmoving as the body itself. In her time she had seen and done great feats, but the powers of the Old Ones lay primarily in conquest. They took life, not gave it. This was foreign to her. She heard the scrape of the Valkyrie's spear and turned to see the maiden pulling herself up.

"You are failing," she observed then, relying on her usual blunt tactics to shield her conflicted thoughts.

"I'll live," Adele said through lungs that sounded air-starved. A vaguely ironic look crossed her features, and she found herself attempting humor for the first time in... well, longer than she could even recall. It was difficult to laugh very often when your only company was the dead. "You could have caught it."

If Illyria appreciated the attempt she didn't acknowledge it—though she had rarely been of a humorous disposition herself. She turned her head to one side, eyes boring intensely. "This contains her mind—her memories?"

"Yes. Everything that was in her mind before is there."

"And a soul... to replace the one that was destroyed? You created this as well?" She couldn't hide a tinge of respect in her tone. She'd thought Valkyries to be takers of souls only, and for that she had scorned them. To create a soul would take a high amount of strength and power, if not the highest. Though Old Ones were far superior to Valkyries in her mind, that sort of power demanded at least worthy recognition.

"No," Adele answered quickly, vehemently. "That is far beyond my ability and my authority, and even if I could, the soul created would not be hers."

She meant to say more, but Illyria bit off her words. "Then how is it that this is Fred, more than what I offered?" It was not a question but a demand. Had not Wesley told her that it was a soul that made humans what they were?

"It _isn't_ Fred, without her soul. But her soul only needs to be retrieved, and that I can do."

"Her soul was destroyed. How is it that you don't know this?" Illyria challenged, respect lost in exchange for condescension. "It was consumed along with the rest of her by the fires of my resurrection." The demoness sounded nearly proud of this destructive power, and Adele wondered if she was, despite all she'd said so recently to the contrary. Illyria nearly always sounded proud and she was full of covering lies; it could be difficult to tell when it was affected.

"Human bodies are weak, but souls aren't so susceptible. They cannot be destroyed—not by any force in this world or any other. A soul is the one thing that is truly eternal."

"No," Illyria countered immediately, but it was softly said and she could not hide a sudden confusion. She tipped her head, disturbed by this new information. Nothing could withstand the birthing force of a great Old One. This was known, an absolute truth among her kind. Her former Qwa Ha'Xahn had said this as well. He would not have lied to her.

Seeing that there was no other way, Adele moved forward, still leaning on her weapon. "Listen," the she instructed solemnly, stepping towards the troubled goddess and raising her hand to hover over the armored chestplate that covered the center of her essence. Illyria's instinct was to snap the hand off without a thought, but she stopped and tipped her head again at the first sounds emanating from deep within her. They quickly rose above the half-breathed song of the Valkyrie, who was doing little more than chanting the words; there was barely a melody to string them together. Her outstretched hand was trembling-- Illyria thought from her exhaustion-- until she saw that the hand was jerking backward in shocking spasms, repelled by the force of essence it read.

The clamour within rose and it was terrible—terri_fying_—like the din of battle with its howling and gnashing and crunching of bones and weapons. There was no clarity, no words recognizable at all—just a shrieking, boiling twist of emotions and loss. Illyria moved her head in fractions as if trying to follow the sounds, her movements jerky and vaguely birdlike. She could not understand the message of her own essence.

It was frightening, and though Adele was not afraid she was not sure if she could hold on. This reading of souls and essences was as effortless to her as breathing in normal circumstances, but this was not normal and she was already over-extended. There was some evil in Illyria's essence, but more than that a tortured darkness, wandering and lost. But she knew, if she could just hold on, that there was more there, and that was what Illyria must hear...

And then there it was, feeling to the Valkyrie that she had just plunged her hand through a cold shadow and into the sunlight. It stopped its pained twitching as the freeing lightness that was good washed over. This voice that came now was so quiet compared to the yawning maw that was Illyria's tormented essence, but it was clear and soft and very strong. It was not calm, but besieged—a force that pressed to be heard. These words couldn't be understood either, not surrounded as they were, but neither were they drowned out.

Illyria knew at once that it was Fred, and, for the first time, a shadow of fear dashed across her face. The Valkyrie recognized it, bringing an explanation. She had sung sufficiently to let the reading hold—for now.

"Yes, Illyria—she's been there all the time...she cried out the day we tried to stop you from rising." She headed off the flare of Illyria's temper with a firm admission. "Yes, I tried to help her. You know what I am, and what I do."

"You failed," Illyria countered, but there was little malice behind it, only her usual directness. This conflict in her essence was far more important than continuing to hurt the death-chooser.

"Yes," the Valkyrie admitted, and Illyria knew she had struck a vulnerable place. "But not entirely. Her soul, her spirit—everything that is her still remains but for her shell, and she's trapped within you as surely as you are trapped within her. Oh, she doesn't exist as she once did-- but she's aware of all you experience and all you feel... and she'd not idle. From the first she's been exerting influence. Just a whisper at first, but now..." She paused, singing once again to prolong the spell and to observe the demoness. The goddess still absorbed the wild sounds of her essence with an equally wild look—a look that nearly bordered on helpless. The song trailed off, words beginning again.

"You're stronger and so she could not stop you from taking her over, but still she has power—more since your own powers were depleted. Why do you think you never conquered? Your army was gone and your world changed. But I knew you as you were, and that would never have stopped you. You would have raised a new army and made the world as you liked it—or tried. You threatened to kill but did not. Even your jailer, Drogyn. Once you would have gutted him without so much as a thought, but instead you protected him."

At last she finished it all, quietly. "Her soul stayed your hand all these times. It kept you from returning to what you were."

_'You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane—empty, but for the force of his gale.'_

So that was it. She was no longer empty.

Fred had been within her all along—fighting when she should have perished. Winifred had not been much of a fighter... not like the others, not in a battle. The memories told her that, and Wesley said it as well, one night when she came to him with the question. 'Tell me of Fred,' she had asked, and though at first he had cursed her—the words soaked in alcohol poison—the curses soon changed to meet her request. He'd gone on for longer than Illyria had cared to listen, the words unable to come out quickly enough to meet his thoughts. He'd talked of how he loved her, and at the time those sentiments had made Illyria's throat feel sour with sickening distaste. And he'd talked of her great courage, shown again and again but mostly at her death. A hero, he'd called her, and now Illyria thought that she probably was. Heroism had little to recommend it, to her way of thinking. Only death.

_'A superhero. And this is my power. To not let them take me! Not me!'_

She had taken Fred, but now she knew that Fred had taken her right back. Such a small hold she had, but any hold at all was insupportable.

Or perhaps the hold wasn't so small as it seemed.

In that brief moment of accord, it happened. The two voices—one low and ageless, one sweet but strong—joined, and words came out with a message that echoed in the corridors with a palpable crush of sorrow.

_ "My Wesley. I love you. Oh, my love..."_

Illyria's eyes widened to the whites, her blue lips jerking back to bare her teeth. She lashed out at once like a steel-trapped animal, snatching the Valkyrie's wrist away with such force the bones nearly snapped. The voices stopped at once.

"If I allow you to take this soul, you will restore Fred... and then Wesley?" she demanded fiercely.

"Yes," Adele answered evenly over the pain, and the demoness released her wrist. "If Fred is restored, Wesley can live again."

"Take it!" voice rising so far above her usual emotionless tone that the sound skittered and bounced over the dank walls of the room. "I want nothing to do with this soul; get it out of me!" Without it, she would be free of these loathsome emotions and the influence of this _moral_ human spirit over her. It was too intolerable even to think of, that something so insignificant should have such sway, but it was truth and could not be avoided. With the soul removed, Illyria could forget this and once again know what she was—the god-king Illyria, not a half-human who wept in grief. She would not have her powers, but at least she would be what she was.

_'I am my power.'_

_'This fate is worse than death.'_

No-- it would eat her alive, having the knowledge of all that she was but unable to express it. It was hateful to think of, but if she were forced to live with human limitations, perhaps it was better that a part of her was human inside as well. She might not be able to bear it otherwise.

And with this soul removed... would she love Wesley any longer? Would she save him, only to never know why?

But what had love mattered to her, before today?

Was this only Fred speaking again, or was it her? Fred's love only, or her own? She nearly screamed in frustration, feeling as if she wanted to rend her mind to pieces.

She shuddered when she realized that she wanted the love to be hers, no matter where it had come from. And that wanting was enough to make it hers. Illyria's. Her love. Her Wesley. She might lose it. Even if she did not, she would lose him to Fred the moment she awoke in her new body. Either way she lost. There was nothing she could gain from this at all.

What had moments before seemed an advantage—giving back this soul that plagued her—now showed itself truly.

"I will lose him if I do this," she thought aloud, uncaring by now that the Valkyrie recognized her feelings. Her struggle with herself was far too great to be concerning herself with the death-maiden's perceptions. "And the knowledge of what I was will torture me." She looked up. "This is a sacrifice. Once sacrifices were offered to me, and now I must make one myself."

Adele sensed her resignation and knew, amazingly, that Illyria meant to go through with it. "Yes, but it will be a greater sacrifice than this."

She did not like what she must say next, but there was no turning back.

"If I take Fred's soul from you, I will be taking out what is good—loosening every restraint. You know of Angel and Angelus; and so it would be with you. There would be nothing to stop you from becoming the Illyria I knew during your reign—a bringer of destruction, bent on conquest and with no sense of good and evil. Even without your powers you would try to conquer, and you would kill—that is certain. I cannot allow that Illyria to run rampant in the world. Even with the chance that I am wrong in this I cannot risk it, because I'm too weak to stop you should I be proved right."

"If you wish me to restore Wesley... I will have to kill you first. That is the only way."

* * *

[1] Radgridr is the actual name of one of the Valkyries, and means "Counsel of Peace" in Anglo-Saxon. (The name would look better if I could figure out how to do the AS characters in Word. So would the name "Adele," which should have an umlaut over the middle 'e.') She was not the youngest of the Valkyries that I know of; that was dramatic license. However, it is true that some Valkyries were more peaceful or battle-loving than others, and some had different functions in the troop.


	7. The Decision

Author's Notes: I apologize that I went so long without updating. I'm on vacation! Please note the new rating on this story. It may be rated too high, but I'm a little concerned out the 'darkness level' and figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Warning—this chapter _is_ depressing.

The italicized portions need a bit of explanation. As in earlier chapters, they are quotes from various characters (usually Illyria or Wes) from memories. That applies here, but you'll notice that some are in double quotes, which means they are spoken out loud.

A note about archiving… I'm absolutely flattered if you want to put up my story. I only ask that you leave my footnotes in if you're not doing a direct link. Thanks. I'd also appreciate having my e-mail listed for feedback purposes: gweni1015juno.com

Chapter 7: The Decision

Two times the greatest of the Old Ones had agreed to sacrifice, but Adele looked at her now and knew there would not be a third.

Illyria was outraged, and her fury was never silent.

"You ask me to give up my life— "she fumed, "-- to allow you to slaughter me like chattel-- all for one human life!"

"For two human lives," Adele corrected quietly.

The former goddess turned her head away in instinctual disgust, muttering darkly. "Pathetic, groveling creatures…" An ugly sneer was on her face… until two words came in Adele's strong voice.

"For Wesley."

Illyria turned sharply to find the Valkyrie's gaze locked, unafraid and unblinking, upon her. She lifted her chin and tried not to show that the words had pierced her, even as more words came forth, the maiden walking towards her.

"It's the idea of this that you hate, Illyria, not the dying itself. Twice you offered to sacrifice yourself for this man, and were those sacrifices any greater?"

They were not. Illyria could not deny that, not truthfully. But her life—her very _life!_ It couldn't be borne. Her head went to one side, but there was none of the usual childlike seeking in the gesture—only malice. Her cold blood showed itself in full.

"Why do you want this, Valkyrie?" she taunted, head tilting still farther. "To make up for your _failures_? You lost Fred because you were weak, and now you wish to use me to undo your weakness!"

"I want you to do what is right!" Adele's voice rose for the first time, but Illyria could hear the slight undertone of defeat as the words echoed. "It isn't right that this man should have to settle for a paradise without his love! It isn't right that Fred should be locked away inside herself!" She was trembling with feeling at her words, knowing she was losing the reins of her careful control but unable to stop herself. All the while she had been telling herself that she must not do this, must not hope, must not try to fight Illyria. There was a reason she had lived longer than all her sisters.

The demoness had harsh words of her own to spit back in her face. "Right, wrong, good, evil! You're no better than these humans, caught up in these meaningless rules, titles."

The mockery had no affect; if anything it cooled Adele's coursing blood. "And you're not?" The question was still; it hung quietly suspended in the air.

Illyria cut it off. "I care nothing for these things," she declared, so vehement and cold that Adele sighed tiredly.

"No, I suppose not."

"But you are _noble_," Illyria continued, willing to kick her opponent while she was down. The death-maiden's head lifted, eyes boring, and the goddess knew she'd understood the hidden meaning behind her words. Her name. Adele—'she who is noble.' The Valkyrie had not given her name and had not supposed that she would remember it after so long. There were many of the maidens then, and Adele hardly notable among them. "Yet you wish my life for theirs. Who deals death now, _Adele_?"

Adele's eyes came up again at that, and there was yet a bit of hardness to them. "I do not like it any more than you do," she defended firmly.

"So why do you not _choose_ me? That would suit your purposes." The words were meant as a death blow, and she sent tem driving into the Valkyrie's face.

They had no effect. "And that is exactly why I cannot choose you," Adele replied, turned her own somber voice on Illyria. "I don't want your death, but death is sometimes the only thing that can bring life. If you die, you will be just as you were before. You'd be asleep in the Well with the rest of your kind. You died millions of years ago, Illyria—you _died._ Your murder may not have been right, or just— but at some time you would have perished, and perished rightly."

"But Winifred… Winifred should not have died when she did. She was meant to live, and love Wesley, and fight against evil. She was meant to live for a long, long time—but that was taken from her. It was a horrible death," she ended hoarsely, pictures of other awful killings flooding her mind. How she wished she did not carry them. It had not been her intention to hurt Illyria with the memory; it's surfacing had been unwelcome.

"I told you I am … regretful of that. Do not remind me of it." Illyria's voice was as flatly arrogant as ever, but in spite of it she did look regretful. The haughty tip of her chin was gone, making her long hair hang straight down almost over her face. She looked very much the penitent.

Then there it came, the last glimmer of hope that Adele had so tried to banish. "Then repair it, Illyria. Undo what has been done. I know you did not choose to destroy Fred… or Wesley….but you are still the only one who can bring them back."

"No. You ask too much of me, Valkyrie."

With that, Adele sighed but nodded. Perhaps she had. She hadn't known many humans—comparatively many, in the millions of years she had observed them-- who would give up their lives in this fashion, and Illyria was not human. Oh, she'd known several who talked well and made pretty offers, but they were most often retracted when the crises came. "I was foolish to try," she said quietly, and then turned up her head. "Auroros!" she called loudly, and a silver pool of air shivered.

Illyria fixed her eyes upon the portal, wondering if the Valkyrie had called upon some monster or enchantment to force the life from her. Instead, out from the gateway leapt a fire-white warhorse, a dimension-jumper whose power showed immediately in bunched muscle and liquid-brilliant eyes. The stallion reared and let out a trumpeting whinny that seemed to split the air, even as a blast of silver flame from his mouth singed it. On landing, the tile floor shattered under diamond hooves, and its silk-white tail whipped out like a lash. Proud and fiery in the way of all great warhorses, he shook his silver mail armor in a motion that clearly showed mettlesome impatience. Unlike his somber Valkyrie mistress, Auroros had not felt the years; it could have been only yesterday that he was flying and charging with the rest of the spirited Valkyrie ponies. They had flown so swiftly that men had thought them the flickering of the dawn.[1]

"Gently, little one," Adele spoke, her manner softening, changing. It was a bizarre endearment, for the horse stood far higher than she did, and looked anything but gentle. Nevertheless, Auroros clearly loved her, and in a moment was resting his great head on her shoulder in the manner of a lamb. She nearly dropped under its weight, but reached an arm around his unbridled muzzle in a soothing gesture.

"Hush, Auri. We have sad cargo today."

When did they have cargo of any other kind? What day of theirs was not filled with death? Truly, she wished she could be as the stallion was, unaffected by the task they had been chosen to do. She was weary of death, and this one hung more heavily on her than was usual.

And so it was with great weariness that she turned to face Illyria one final time. The fallen goddess was watching her every movement, body tensed like a wound spring.

"Say goodbye to Wesley if you wish to, then," Adele told her. "He cannot abide here any longer. I've held it off too long already."

Illyria stared hard. The horse had come to bear Wesley's soul away. These were her final moments with him—what was left of him.

"You'll not touch him!"

Adele only sighed again. They'd come full circle… or had they? As Illyria took Wes' body into her arms in farewell, there was a change in her, one that was palpable. It was different this time. Desperation clung to the demoness as strongly as she herself clung to the lifeless form she held. Finality. Adele hated this-- the goodbyes-- and she had seen more than any being should ever have to witness. Death happened every day—some quiet and peaceful, others not, but the ones she attended on were heroic deaths, epic deaths, and those were very rarely peaceful. They were the sorts of deaths that men read about in the old sagas or make into verse and songs—too dramatic and terrible to be real. But they were, in the world she lived in. She had seen women tear out their hair, cut their own limbs to pieces. She'd seen others leap onto funeral pyres, trying to follow their lovers and burn their anguish away. She witnessed men who had plunged daggers into their own hearts or drank poison—or had wanted to. Many, many others sat stone-faced while their sorrow ate them from the inside. Sometimes their minds slipped, spewing out insanities.

And those were nothing to this farewell. This was worse, worse than anything she had set eyes on, and she moved behind Auroros not only to give the grieving demoness some privacy but also to shield herself from the too-painful scene. Illyria's tears weren't flowing in the way of a human. They were _boiling_ out. Strange for a creature whose blood was reptile-cold… Her form kept flickering to that of Winifred, but she seemed unable to hold the simple modulation that cloaked her emotions. No, this was _her_ mourning now, despite Winifred's influence. The reading of Illyria's essence had clearly shown that Wesley was the one thing the two shared in common, but held separately as well. If only it were enough… enough to hold Illyria without Fred's soul… It would be so simple then. Why could things never be simple, or good more easy to carry out?

Adele wondered at the magnitude of Illyria's grief as the goddess wept, her forehead pressed against Wesley's. Even with Fred's influence, this mourning was nearly inexplicable. Not only was he a _human,_ but Illyria had not known him for very long-- certainly not in terms of her own lifetime. It was as a single grain of sand in a vast hourglass. Most of that time they had been at odds with one another, and he in downright contempt. They'd never shared a single moment of love, except in false face at the end.

But Wesley was the first creature she'd ever loved, and she from a race that did not love at all. It was monumental. It was like unto the tragedy of first love, like the dramas that humans write and play at-- everything amplified. She carried her own grief as well as Winifred's, and Fred's would have been overwhelming enough on its own. Illyria was still an Old One, with strong feelings to match her once uncomprehendable strength. It was only natural that she would feel things at a colossal scale. She'd once felt pride that held worlds in her sway. She'd had a conquering spirit that crushed armies at a single blow. Her recent anguish had destroyed that very night the most fearsome and vast of armies.

Illyria's mind also rested on the armies, nearly wishing another to come and challenge her. It would give her something to hurt, somewhere to send this ravaging grief that feasted on her. Before, she had channeled it onto the enemy minions, converted it to violence. Now there was nothing to channel it onto but her. She felt that she could tear her own self to pieces; there were no enemies to rip limb from limb. This hurt too much. It hurt. She felt it too deeply. Her memories flashed farther backward, to a time during her reign. A group of enemy demons had plotted to take her throne, and as a punishment she had thrown her scepter among them. They'd turned on one another as she'd known they would, hacking one another to bits as they clutched futilely for their prize. She'd had to do nothing, save to observe… and perhaps she had smiled. That bloody reckoning mirrored her pain now. She was breaking into pieces, melting …

She thought, briefly, of the body of Vail, of further venting her anger upon it, but then remembered that there was little left. Even if she reduced him to grime beneath her boots, what would follow? Would she kill the Valkyrie, the random people who walked the city, her comrades? It would not heal her, and she knew that the soul within her would never allow it. So she turned her mind backward, replaying old killings in hopes of slaking her misery. There was she and Fred, destroying Vail together. Then Fred, alone, hitting the woman Justine savagely when she'd found out her attempt to murder Wesley.

Illyria was startled from her pain for a flash of a moment. She had not meant to cross into Winifred's memories. Were they so blended now?

It wasn't the time to think on that. It was time now to let Wesley go. He was stiff by that time in her arms, his grey sweater stiff too with blood but soaked soft in places with her tears. It was the same grey sweater he had worn at Fred's death. Illyria knew he had worn it tonight for a purpose. He'd known he was going to follow, even if he could not go where she was.

"Did Wesley feel this?" she asked in strangled voice.

"Yes," answered Adele without malice, and no sooner had she confirmed the awful truth than Illyria found herself suddenly at the mercy of a vision, one that clutched at her face and would not let her look away. It was another memory, but more vivid, and so close to reality that she felt swallowed into it. It was all around her, playing itself out, and so full of anguish that she tried to tear it away from before her eyes. She could not. It was her own mind that held her, and she couldn't escape it.

It was Fred's death that she saw. Such a meaningless little memory when she had first come back to the world. She'd used it to control Wesley, but no more. Probably it was fitting that it now controlled _her._ She saw it not as a moving picture. She was not a spectator. It was Fred's memory that she saw, and so she saw it _as_ Fred. Saw Wesley's face, creased with unable pain, as he pleaded with her to fight and live. Felt his hands clutching with the same desperation that she now showed for him, felt his whole body shudder with choked-in sobs as he tried to be brave for her. Heard his voice so full of love, starting with set determination and ending with a whisper of despair.

To hear his voice once again…

_'I've loved you, since I've known you.'_

_'I'll never leave you.'_

The words were a bittersweet balm to Illyria, a dying comfort to Fred. Comfort… that was what Illyria craved, and she jerked herself away at last from that memory only to plunder others. Fred had known much love. Wesley, her soul mate, had loved her so much it killed him. She would not think on that. Charles had loved her also. Her parents had been adoring. Those recollections were much simpler. Illyria bathed in the happy moments as she found them. Christmas mornings. Birthdays. Flirtatious early-morning phone calls with Charles. Those first few sweet, awkward dates.

But these were stolen memories, not hers. They were poisoned through with her own knowledge that it was all going to end horribly, and so no joy came from them.

She must think of things that were hers, back to her own fierce and primordial world. Her reign… but that hurt still worse. It was gone.

She had nothing—_nothing—_not even memories to live on. No powers, no followers, no worship, no temples, no kingdom.

_'... turned to ash and stale wind.'_

No place in this world.

_'Your place is with the rest of your people, dead and turned to ash.'_

Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Was that not what humans said over the graves of their dead? They turned to dust. Vampires turned to dust. She was higher than both, but she still turned to ash and her kingdom with her. It seemed that she was not so much more than they were, after all.

Her guide was gone. Her way. Her light.

_'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy...'_

Illyria winced at the unbidden memory, biting her lip until it bled. That was where the song ended.

Her love was dead, any chance of it dashed. Love seemed to be the only comfort in this foul world, as Wesley had believed. And hope. Purpose. She had none.

_'Now you know how I feel.'_

She looked to Wesley. Indeed.

Her eyes turned across the floor to Winifred, or the shell of her. Her shell, Wesley's shell. Empty inside, as she now was. She could see earlier images dancing before her eyes, of the two of them, still full—of life, of happiness, glowing with the discovery of their new love. But she'd turned them to shells, and now she was a shell herself. It was just.

And now there was a way she could fill the two of them back up...

It was the _right_ thing…

No… no—she would _make _a place for herself; she'd carve it out. She had clawed her way back once and could do it again, even if she did have to start with nothing. As an Old One she had started with everything, for the moment she appeared the creatures below her had known she was meant to be worshipped and feared. Conquest had been a simple matter; she'd been born with a hunger for it.

_'When the world met me, it shuddered. It groaned. It knelt at my feet!'_

She would have to fight harder, that was all. She could still fight, that she had proven. But for what would she fight? Would she battle further alongside Angel and his warriors? She disliked the vampiric leader intensely, despite their current alliance. It was one of the ways she knew Winifred's feelings for people were not, in her, all-encompassing. Spike and Charles she was fond enough of, that she would admit, but it was not enough.

She had no reason to fight. She'd fought only for Wesley, to avenge him—and also for Winifred. She'd begun the battle against the Black Thorn in revenge for the humiliation Hamilton had subjected her to. Despite what people thought of her, she hadn't killed merely for pleasure, though she thrilled at a good fight—it was one of the few things that made her feel alive anymore. She'd always left senseless killing to baser creatures like lesser demons and vampires. She killed to accomplish her own ends and that was all. Now that she could no longer conquer or avenge, what was the point? She could try to seek out more of Wesley's killers, or Angel's warriors and fight for good, for what little that was worth to her. Then, one day, she would be defeated by something stronger than herself, and there were far too many of those now. Her last moments would be some filth like Hamilton, reaching out with a death blow and sneering in her face. She longed to destroy the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart, but knew, honestly, that she was not strong enough. They would kill her and it would not be a good death.

Soldiers were supposed to know why and what they died for. She'd made sure of it when she sent her own into battle all those millions of years ago. A cause put fire in the blood and a fighting spirit in the body. She would die without any purpose at all. It was a horrible fate but the best she could hope for, for being a warrior was all she knew and all that she was. What was she to do—live what could have been Fred's life, with a home in Texas, a job, a husband, children? There was nothing for her in that happy, normal human life; she couldn't do it. Even Fred could not have, not after Pylea changed her forever.

Again a memory seized her. Spongy ground and green, dense trees. The sharp tang aroma of the forest burning in her nose. Hot, rapid breath at her heels and tearing her lungs. Lungs—human lungs. She was running-- Fred was running. Illyria never ran away, had never. This was the hell dimension Pylea. She was trying to run home, away from the monsters nipping at her heels…

Illyria's head swam, wondering why this image had come to her. She couldn't go to her own home, if it still existed. Even if it did and she could find a way, she'd be destroyed immediately by the remaining Old Ones—a fate so terrible that even the thought could not be endured.

She was trapped as Fred had been trapped, as she was trapped now. Trapped and so lost in this foreign, mortal world…

The words came out before could stop them. They came in Fred's voice, broken and scared.

_"I was so lost... I was all by myself and you weren't there!"[2]_

Illyria looked almost frightened, unsure if the words had actually left her mouth. Her troubled eyes turned to Wesley's still face, as if were still alive to guide her.

_'But I don't say these words…'_

And deep inside Illyria, something broke. Before, the breaking down of the bond between herself and her human shell had caused she herself to break, powers rupturing and leaking until Wesley had saved her by draining them away. Now, she was breaking as the bond between she and Fred grew stronger. There was nothing she could do but close her eyes and let the memories hit her.

They came in a torrent, rushing through the fissure in her cracked essence and gushing out from her lips. They assaulted all her senses.

"This face is not my face," she said weakly, repeating what she had revealed to Wesley in what seemed like ages ago. "I don't know what it will say."__

_"I got lost. I got lost and they did terrible things to me! If you see what they made of me... I didn't mean to get so lost."_

Her voice was high, frightened, with wild fear intensifying a Texan accent. It was Fred's voice from years ago, when she was a little girl lost. Illyria fought for control and the next words at least were in her own voice.

_"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I got so lost. I didn't mean to."_

Perhaps they were in her own voice because the words themselves were also hers…

"Make it stop!" Illyria thundered, holding her head. That too was a phrase from memory… at Fred's death… Wide-eyed, she turned to the empty shell of Winifred that the Valkyrie had formed, and turned her anger and fear upon it. What if this was Fred attacking her, attacking her where she could not fight back-- from the inside, from her very thoughts? "I order you to stop this!"

Adele, ending a drowned-out song, answered as she tried to steady Auroros. The stallion, disturbed, pawed and snorted loudly. "Illyria… Fred isn't doing this. She feels as you do, now." Her reading had shown Fred's spirit desperately trying to hold onto control as her soul and Illyria's essence grew closer at incredible speed. She was afraid but steady, desperate not to be sucked in, like she had been those years ago in the library. She would not lose herself, lose the shade of herself that remained.

Either Illyria was doing this to herself, or it was simply _happening_—the inevitable result of two beings sharing a mind and body… and the same great love for the same man.

_'There are two sets of memories-- it is hard to tell which is which.'_

Illyria's own memories were no better than Winifred's, and even they seemed to turn against her. She could hear Drogyn's voice, commanding but deep and quiet.

_'Old One... you have no right to walk this earth. Your time has passed, you belong to the Well.'_

And her unforced answer.

_ 'Truly.'_

"Truly," Illyria echoed, almost sadly. She had known it all along, hadn't she, even before Wesley was taken from her.

_ 'So why don't you go?'_

Wesley's voice, so rightfully cruel. He had so much potential for darkness, and his coldness could match her own. He was all fire and ice, her Wesley. How she loved him.

_ 'Please, Wesley... why can't I stay?'_

With Fred's dying whisper, the memories themselves also died away, leaving Illyria oddly still. Adele watched warily; Auroros settled. All three could feel it. The change in the fallen goddess was affecting the very air around them, it was so palpable. There was a peace about her that she had not possessed since her arrival at Vail's chambers—since she had found her temple in ruins and her entire purpose and place in the world destroyed along with it.

She knew her purpose now. She could endure life a life with nothing. She could go on, in the way of Old Ones and human beings. As both, she had strength in abundance, more than she knew. But defeat she could not bear. She could not go on knowing that she could save this man that she was inexplicably bound to and did not. That would be the ultimate defeat. She would not lose he who was precious to her… even if saving him meant her very death. Even if she had to lay down her life, her pride, her remaining power, her pride, she had to do it. For Wesley….and now, for Winifred as well. They were meant to live their lives, as she millions of years ago had lived hers. Her time had passed, but theirs would begin again.

It would be a death but not a defeat.

Illyria rose to her feet with more pure, unaffected grandeur than Adele had ever seen in her, even when she held the worlds in her sway. Her voice, under no force but her own great conviction, matched it fully. It was Illyria and none other that spoke.

"I will do this."

Adele could hardly reply. "Illyria?" she questioned, not quite comprehending.

"If you must have my life for theirs, then you'll have it. Restore them."

And Illyria, the former god-king, knelt once more to say good-bye to the man she loved.

Only this time, she knew she was the one leaving.

* * *

[1] In Viking times, the Aurora Borealis—or Northern Lights—were thought to be the flickering of light off the Valkyrie riders' armor. Then name "Auroros" is a masculine version of Aurora—"the dawn."

[2] This quote and the ones immediately following are from Fred's post-Pylea breakdown in Season Three's "Fredless."


	8. The Price Paid

Author's Notes: Though this seemed to have ended last chapter, it does in fact continue on... I apologize for the confusion. And no, this isn't the final chapter, either, but very close to it. Thankfully, most of the next chapter is done.

This probably won't affect anyone, but bears mentioning anyhow since I have had some past issues with this sort of thing. While the "Angel" characters clearly are not mine, Adele is. (The ideas and characterization of Radridr are as well, though her name is found in Norse writings.) Adele is under my copyright. Again, I don't know why anyone would want to use her, but there it is.

Chapter 8: The Price Paid

Time had been Illyria's plaything once, but no longer. Those days were gone-- long, long ago.

Now, time was her master. It seemed that human emotions stained everything they touched. In her mourning, time had all but stopped, making her languish in seconds that felt like years. But now that she knew she was to die, the seconds had cruelly sped up again until there were none left for her to spend. Just enough remained for her to say goodbye; a goodbye that neither she nor Wesley would ever remember.

There were no tears this time, for Illyria, now that the loss of Wesley's life stood to be corrected, felt no particular reason to cry. She would lose him, but in the place she was going she would neither know that, nor care. Only senseless sleep awaited. No, there were better ways to spend her remaining moments than in the pointless tears she despised. She lifted her hand before her face, willing the body armor covering it to retract. It came away fluidly, separating back in thread-like rippling waves, leaving her blue-tinged hand open to the air—and the sensitive nerves open to touch. She wished to touch Wesley with her own hand-- or as close to her own in this body she inhabited-- with no barriers of armor or false form. She wanted to _feel_, though despite it all a part of her still cursed what should have been an unwanted desireNo matter. Running her cold fingers over his face, she found that her shell-like skin deadened much of the sensation, and that his ashen skin was nearly as chilled and stiff as her own. The simple human comfort of touch was denied her, and she drew her hand away.

She did not kiss him as she had when she bid goodbye to him as Fred. That was a fully human gesture of affection that she could appreciate from Fred's memories but had no history with of her own. She would show her love in the way of her own kind, or as well as could be done among a kind which did not show love. They could show admiration and esteem, in a detached, still-superior way, and that would have to be enough. Once again she willed part of her armor away, chipping away little bits of herself, this time revealing a heavy chestplate beneath the rubbery coating. It protected the very center of her function system, and always had. Though modified to fit her human form, it was of the same ancient metal forged before time, humming blue with defensive energy. Great power rested in it, the strongest protection. Taking it in her hands, Illyria wrested it free, then placed it over Wesley's chest. It was too small for him—an observation that stuck her as ironic even through her sadness—but it then expanded and fit, as if it had been made just for him. He would be protected in his new life and in her absence. Illyria herself was left as vulnerable inside and out as she had ever been, her emotions and her physical weakness laid completely open. Wesley might never know the significance of her gift, she knew, but at the very least he might look on it and remember her.

How very sad she had become, that she wanted the loving remembrance of one human. Once millions had mourned her passing, and worlds fell into disarray.

Or had they? Perhaps the worship of her subjects had only come from fear. She would not have known the difference, nor cared.

She found it didn't matter now, and she was not yet finished. A few paces took her to the new form of Winifred, and she knelt to take it up in her arms. She was gentle—as gentle as Wesley had been, carrying Fred to her deathbed—and she settled it beside him. Not in his arms—despite the rightness of that she wouldn't abide her own loss to be rubbed in her face.

"I have returned what I have taken," Illyria spoke solemnly. "Your soul will heal now, my Wesley." She was still a moment, deciding. "And I will prevent it from being broken again."

Illyria placed her hand on Winifred, trying to will her strength to flow between them. This had not worked, earlier, as Wesley was dying. She would have given every last bit of her strength to save him then, had she been able to. Now she felt power leaving her body in long waves, knowing that even as her own limbs grew weaker, Fred's were energizing with strength far beyond her human potential. The Valkyrie must have been aiding her, channeling her powers, and turning her head she saw this was so. A hummed song was on Adele's lips, along with an approving glow in her usually flat grey eyes. Working together, they transferred just enough physical strength into Fred-- all that her thin frame could accept without damage. It was not much—only a fraction of the strength that Illyria possessed even in her weakened form—but it would be enough, the demoness hoped, to keep the woman alive in the battles that would surely come. She would not have another early death tearing Wesley apart. She would not die for nothing.

And when it was finished, she stood slowly, knowing that she too was finished. Her time was gone, and she had nothing left to give. Once she had heaped spoils and gifts upon her favored soldiers and priests, but now she had nothing.

Nothing but her life.

She turned to the Valkyrie Adele, giving one slow nod to show that it was time.

"I can't bring him back until you are gone," the death-maiden told her. "I would if it were possible. But I will do this for you." Closing her eyes in concentration, the Valkyrie began to chant.

With this song is my choice undone One life restored shall bring life to another As one accepts death, two live again 

She paused, sadly considering the ritual closing line.

For we are the Valkyries, who must choose the slain. 

Adele opened her eyes and spoke to Illyria. "By my shield and spear, you have my word," she finished, gravely serious.

"I know," Illyria replied, the tone deep in her throat. "You are honorable and I believe you." The oath by weapons she understood well; Valkyries and Old Ones were alike in that way. All born to live in war.

Adele didn't know what to make of the unexpected praise, and she swallowed it down. It was the demoness herself who looked honorable now, standing unafraid and bleeding out hurt. "And I will see to it that he knows what you did for him. You'll be remembered and loved, Illyria."

It was some little comfort, Adele thought, to a creature who was going to die and sleep unaware for the rest of eternity, but Illyria acknowledged this as well before turning her eyes to the spear Adele held, the spear she had sworn by. And Adele, knowing she must kill, raised it haltingly. Two sets of feathers spun from the spearhead—those of the swan—taken from the blood-marred Swan-Maiden cloak of their beloved Radridr—and those of the raven, the oldest and most sinister symbol of the Valkyries. Peace and death. She must choose death this time.

For all her pressing of Illyria to return Fred, she did not want to kill her. Many of her sisters had loved battle well enough, that was true, and she had ridden onto the field shrieking and thundering as loudly as any of them—back in the days when she still had enough heart for such things. Still, she'd always had less fire in her blood than most, and what little she'd had was long cooled. It was that coolness that had kept her alive so long. The only creature she had killed was the demon who slaughtered Radridr, and that was rage funneled through self-defense. It was a dizzying dark blur in her memory and that was all. She wasn't sure that she could take Illyria's life so deliberately, pushing her spear through living flesh, draining the life away… if she could find a way to kill her at all. The way was through the center of her function system, she forced herself to reason, which was usually covered in the spelled breastplate.

Illyria had willingly removed that protection already. She was defenseless and stood there ready to die with her steady, unblinking gaze. If she was afraid she didn't show it. Adele looked the more afraid of the two, though berating herself all the while. Hadn't she seen enough killing and chosen enough deaths to know how to go about it? Perhaps her heart was not so hardened as she'd thought. She took a steadying breath. This drawing out was unbelievably cruel—not only to her, but to the demon waiting to die.

One last memory of Fred's flitted through Illyria's mind. Pylea again.

_'Make it quick. Please, make it quick.'_

She spared the Valkyrie—another unselfish act that day from a creature who had once been the embodiment of selfishness. It was better that she do it herself. With her face turned up, proud and strong, she took the spear from Adele and drove it in.

It pierced her heart and she gasped, once, falling to her knees. Her ungloved hand clutched at the place, clawing out the spear, then covering the wound. Her heart was as a human heart, just as human as the blood that poured out to fill her hand. The weakness she felt was human, too, and even in the midst of her pain it angered her, knowing she was going to die from a wound that in her pure form would never have so much as caused her to turn her head. She was fading fast, too fast. It was an utter disgrace for a god-king... and it hurt. It _hurt_.

Adele stood in pain, too, wishing to intervene but knowing she must not. It did not seem right to her that Illyria should die on her knees, but neither could she go to her. They were not comrades, and the proud fallen goddess would likely spurn any attempts at consolation. It would be showing weakness. Instead she stood apart and suffered at Illyria's necessary pain, turning her head away to spare the both of them. It would not be long.

Only a moment later she started when she felt a humming disturbance flowing from the dying former goddess. She whirled around just in time to see a glowing ball of pure light erupt into the dimness of the room. Adele knew at once what it was.

_Winifred_.

Fred's soul, sensing the weakness of the now nearly dead body of the demoness who held her captive, had instinctively surged towards freedom, breaking loose and flying for its new home as if drawn by a magnet.

"Stop!" the Valkyrie commanded, throwing her palm up and in front in order to force the soul back . It was too early, it had to go back...

But she was too weak to stop it.

The soul slammed into the new form lying in wait beside Wesley, and, as Adele had vowed, Winifred Burkle came once again into the world of the living.

--------------------

She came back with an almost electric jolt, bolting straight up into a sit. Her eyes flew open, her heart leapt and sped. Fred jerked awake, but there was also the vague feeling within her that she'd never been truly asleep. Trapped in Illyria and reduced to her purest spirit form, she'd had no accurate measure of time, no concrete sense of her confines. Unconnected to the workings of her own mind but with access to all her own memories, she'd been half-sentient, absorbing every thought, emotion, and perception of the demon Illyria and responding, influencing in kind. It was this absorbed knowledge that saved her now.

Had she not known what had happened, she would have been driven mad within a few instants—like a newborn suddenly filled with all the memories and complexities of a lifetime—of two lifetimes. Full sentience, full awareness hit her like a freezing waterwall. She gasped air into her new lungs, struggling for control, trying to push the wave back into a receding tide. The scientist in her demanded that she try to figure it all out somehow, but what she had experienced couldn't be explained in those terms, by that world. If she tried, she knew, her mind could fly into millions of little pieces. She fought down the sudden, odd urge to scribble madly on the walls.

Instead, she picked out the concrete facts and clung to them. She was alive, alive and strong. Stronger.

If she was alive, Illyria must be dead. Illyria had died so that she could live again. Her head swam at that and she forced it away.

_Wesley._

Wesley was... alive? Dead?

Fred's heart twisted sharply when she saw him lying there beside her, in death. Tears formed and burned, though she knew what deal it was Illyria had made. Immediately she pressed her hand to his chest, feeling a cold punch of despair when no heartbeat sounded there. The death-shadow was still over his face.

This couldn't be right, she argued, it couldn't. If Illyria had trusted the Valkyrie, that meant the Valkyrie was worthy of trust. She pushed her hand down again, desperate, and a few agonizing seconds later felt a warmth spreading beneath it-- almost a stirring. She watched in hopeful awe as the dark-dried bloodstain on his gray sweater absorbed into itself, little by little. Pulling up the garment, carefully, she looked down to see the edges of Wesley's mortal wound stitching themselves back together, pulsing with a glowing silver light. Her breath caught and she moved her hand up to cover his heart once again.

It was beating now, there beneath her hand. She felt a slight hitch, then a steady rising and falling of his abdomen as he took in his first gasps of live-sustaining air.

"Wes..." she cried, sharp and tear-choked. "Wes." Her eyes closed, tears welling.

Winifred clutched Wesley tightly to herself, warm tears falling upon his still-closed eyes, as if, like Rapunzel with her blinded prince, the tears would bring open-eyed sight. He stirred, undoubtedly living, and she rejoiced with tears all over again. Still, he did not come awake. She'd come back in a new body, free of any hurt or injury, whereas he was still recovering, healing.

She was going to smother him if she wasn't careful, she realized, and relaxed her hold. Illyria had given her strength that she would have to learn to use. Thinking of her, she looked over, expecting to see the demon who had killed her lying dead.

Illyria lay where she had fallen.

But she was not dead.. and she was not still.

The demon-king Illyria was rising.

--------------------

The demoness still looked like her, but then she opened her mouth and spoke. Nothing human was left in the voice.

"Gone," Illyria said, her age-old voice a scraping slither, but with no trace of hissing cunning. It was deep and reverberating, almost rattling in the still-human chest. Even in the one small syllable, the frequencies seemed to jump from high to low, spanning the spectrum. One hand touched her now laughable wound, still bleeding, and her head turned in Fred's direction with one smooth, menacing swivel. She froze, numb. It was like watching a nightmare version of herself as the creature rose, unfurling her spine one vertebrae at a time. The blue neck tipped back, the face tipped straight up to stare at the ceiling.

The ceiling was ablaze with light. Blue veins of power formed there, crackling and snapping in short spurts. It reminded Fred, oddly, of the bug zappers that adorned many a front porch in her native Texas. Fatal little shocks and jolts. As the seconds flew, the veins became arteries, the arteries a tapestry web of arcing and criss-crossing lines of pure, deadly energy.

Illyria reached up a hand to it, calling it as her own. Twin bolts lashed around the hand, into it. A white flash shocked the room as blue electricity met almost-human flesh, and Fred was forced to shut her eyes tightly against it. When she was able to open them again, blinking back drifting shapes and light remnants, the hand was no longer there.

In its place was a heavy, thrashing tentacle. Armoured scales were skittering over Illyria's human arms like fleeing bugs, and they went jointless with serpentine muscularity. As the energy lines wrapped her torso, it thickened and stretched, separating into shiny plated sections even as more tentacles sprouted horrifically from its sides. Talons shot out from beneath, tearing the tile. And all the while Illyria grew, filling the room, cracking the high ceiling.

The face—Fred's own face--- went last, covered by the featureless helm. She wondered if, beneath it, her face was still there.

"Get back!" Adele screamed at her, rushing forward. Her spear was clutched in one hand, her shield in the other. Not one hour before she'd used it to heal the same demon—or was it the same?—that she now had to stop at all costs. This was exactly what she'd been afraid of. Fred's soul had escaped, been too early, which was something she should have anticipated but hadn't, in her over-exerted state, been able to stop. A spirit trapped would escape at exactly the moment it was able to-- Winifred could not have stopped it. Even so, Illyria had been on death's doorstep—she would have died still had not her powers returned, filling up the vacuum the removed soul had left. In Adele's uncharacteristic eagerness to re-unite Wesley and Fred, she'd overlooked that possibility as well. Their only hope lay in the fact that only a small portion yet had been used. Clouds of it were swirling ominously, ready to be tapped. Illyria, though in native form as she had been hours earlier in the alley battle, was thus far at a tiny fraction of her full size and strength. She was able to adapt her size to various situation as needed; in full war form—her preferred form—she would easily crush the city of Los Angeles without so much as knowing it. When one considered that her temples had once stood as high as small moons in the night sky... A few more minutes of absorbed power and that ancient Illyria could reign again. A few more minutes and they were all done for.

Adele could not let that happen. Letting out a Valkyrie war cry, she charged Illyria, spear raised.

She thought to herself that the cry sounded wrong. Hollow. Forgotten.

Strange that she should become a hot-blooded Valkyrie at last.

Those were her last thoughts. She ducked one flying tentacle, batted another away with her spear point, blocked a third with her shield. It was the fourth that caught her across the neck, sending her through the air like a shot arrow.

The last of the Valkyries hit the far wall with a dull, sickening metallic crunch, then dropped unresisting to the floor. Her crumpled cloak flitted down over her equally crumpled form, while silvery blood soaked golden hair. She didn't get up.

Auroros bent his neck down, pushing at his fallen mistress with his muzzle. The great heavy feet moved as he stood protectively over her.

A moment later his grieving, shrieking whinny split the air.

Fred would have to face Illyria alone.

--------------------

It is an animal's instinct, in times of danger, to react in one of two ways—it will fight, or it will run. Fred—who, in her years as a hunted 'animal' in Pylea, had had those instincts honed to far keener a point than that of the average person— had spent a great portion of her life running, seeking protection. It was not that she could not fight—no, she could fight tooth and nail if she needed to, and she could fight well—but fighting brought to her mind the dark part of herself that she would much rather have safely tucked away. Memories of what she'd had to do to survive in Pylea, when running away simply wasn't a viable option, when she'd been forced to stop running, when she'd been cornered... Memories of Seidel, when her dark part had erupted for all to see.

When she was needed, she fought without hesitation. Now, facing Illyria, it was her first instinct. This was her battle. Wesley was still waking, healing, and she was fairly sure that the Valkyrie was dead. Her spear lay on the ground, looking like a laughably ineffective toy against the demon before her. Still, it was the only weapon she had, and it would have to do. She steeled herself to make a run for the weapon, knowing she would have to avoid the tentacles that would crush her in an instant. If one had killed the Valkyrie, she could only imagine what it would do to her, how bad her death would be... but she didn't let herself imagine.

Fred, beyond all things, was a survivor. Illyria had taken her once. She was _not_ going to take her again. And she absolutely _was not_ going to take Wesley.

But Fred was also an opportunist, and she knew where her strength lay. Her mind was the most effective weapon she could wield in a fight, and her perceptive mind at that moment began telling her something that halted her, something important that she could use.

Illyria _wasn't attacking_.

The great demon looked... confused. She didn't know why she hadn't seen it before. The tentacles were thrashing, but there was no real intention or power behind the movements. Illyria was reacting in the way someone does when awakened from a dream in which they are fighting... lashing out without any real direction. Fred could remember accidentally hitting her own mama that way, once, when she'd tried to shake her out of a nightmare.

Also, deep inside, she knew that this creature just looked _wrong_. This was the demon Fred could picture from the beginning-- the one who had burned out her insides, caused her agony, and did not care. But Illyria had changed with each passing day, into something that Fred knew simply could not look like this. This was not the demon who had chosen to give up her life for two humans, for love. It could have been that when her own soul was removed all of the changes had been erased, but Fred had to hope that wasn't so. She knew Illyria better than anyone could, knew her from the inside, knew everything about her-- her every motivation and unwanted feeling. She had to believe that somewhere inside this lethal, towering demon-warrior there was something of humanity left. The Valkyrie had not believed there was, but the Valkyrie didn't know Illyria as Fred did.

All she had to do was remind Illyria what she had become— if she could do it before being killed first. She had to find a weakness, a trigger.

She looked at Wes, whose breathing was growing strong and visible, and knew how to do it. Wesley was Illyria's weakness, her Achilles heel. If there was any part of her left that had loved him...

She lifted him up into her arms, finding it easy. She had once held up a handful of blood in Pylea, to lure away the demon-Angel from Wes and Gunn. Ironically, she wouldn't have been able to lift Wes now had not Illyria shared her strength. She waited, back in a cave-like dome of darkness that the corner of the room provided. Before she could reveal him she had to test Illyria somehow. She was not going to risk Wesley's life by carrying him out into the open, only to find out that her entire theory was wrong and have him pay for the mistake by being crushed to death. Of course, if she was wrong, that meant they were both going to die anyway, which was the only reason she could make herself risk him at all. Who knew how many would die?

The wait was not long. Illyria could sense her, smell her, from her place across the room and through the darkness. The demon-king tipped her head to one side, a sinister and terrifying parody of the childlike way she did it in her human form.

"You hide in a cave, shell," Illyria taunted, trying to draw her out. "Always a cave." Fred drew up straighter but did not leave the protective cloak of darkness. "Leave."

It was a command, and Fred turned it over in her mind. Why would Illyria want her to go free?

"Depart from my presence if you wish to be spared." Still Fred held her ground. If she left, she would be abandoning the fight at quite possibly the only time it could be won. It was her duty to stop Illyria before she was unleashed on an unprepared world. She knew that Wesley would want the same. "_Leave!_" Illyria finally boomed menacingly, but Fred caught the desperation, too. With a bolt of insight she knew that this was the evidence, however small, that she'd been needing. The Illyria she was searching for was in there somewhere, and reachable. It was time to make her move.

"I can't do that," she countered, firm but soft, stepping towards the dim light. It was difficult to focus through the acrid, drifting smoke.

"Then you are foolish. I could snap you into pieces like the bundle of twigs that you are. Do not tempt my wrath further. I should have killed you already for your insubordination."

_Posturing_, Fred realized. Or was it? If it wasn't, death was waiting in a hundred different forms. She turned her back to Illyria, holding Wesley away. If Illyria struck her after what she planned to say, he'd be shielded with her body. "You've already killed me once, Illyria."

"Enough!" Illyria roared, and Fred almost dropped to the floor, needing to cover her ears and rock in pain as her eardrums quivered and stretched. "You DARE to speak my name!?" The demoness slammed her tentacles straight down, splitting the ground and sending up geysers of ground tile and jagged shards. She clawed at the floor in anger, her talons scratching deep rivets in the stone as easily as Fred's fingernails would have done to a soft bar of soap.

Winifred struggled to keep her feet as the entire room shook on its foundation, then tried to stumble forward into the light.

She did, coming to halt in the center of the room with Wesley still cradled in her arms. This was her stand. "Kill me again if you have to," she said, voice trembling with intensity, "but don't hurt him."

Illyria stared at them through her faceless helm. Fred could hear her own heartbeat. She could hear Wesley's.

Then they were both snatched up in one tentacle, lifted off the ground. Fred had a horrible vision of being squeezed until their heads flew right off like corks, but Illyria was being almost...gentle. She held them directly before her mask—it was nearly as long as Fred was. Blue eyes glittered from somewhere in its darkness. Fred wished she could somehow read them, to know their fates. Wesley moaned and stirred in the constricting grasp, but still could not wake. One of his hands reached for his healing wound, but touched armored scales instead. Illyria looked at them for a heart-pounding long moment, then turned her gaze down over herself. Fred hadn't seen it until she'd been close up, but blood from the wound Illyria had dealt herself still trickled from the armor-draped chest. The stream was crimson, and thin as the hair ribbons that Fred had liked to wear as a girl—but it was still there. Illyria touched the tip of one tentacle to it, then turned her face up again to stare at the two humans dangling in her grasp.

"Why did I do this?" she asked, her voice a very human whisper.

"For him," Fred answered, knowing that beneath the dark visor the face _was_ hers, after all. "For us."

Conflict raged in Illyria. If she could just hold on to her power, grasp for more, she would be her ancient self once again as she had not been since her re-birth. Illyria of the primordium, shaper of things, the ecstasy of death. She could see it waiting above her, and feel it tugging at her, calling to her, calling to her from inside and out. All of her terrible glory, waiting to be regained. It was commanding her to push out the faint spark of her humanity, the part that tainted her, and with it her not-faint love for Wesley.

Though she looked like the vestige of her native self, Illyria-pure, she knew must not be. When she was truly Illyria, there would have been no conflict. Illyria of the primordium would have removed the two humans from her sight by flinging their crushed corpses from the room, if they did not heed her command. The new Illyria knew that she was no longer capable of hurting so much as a hair on their heads. Either of them. Wesley... or Fred.

Perhaps she could become herself again. She had no soul within her, and her powers were ripe for the re-taking. If she could just push the two humans away... take what was hers... forget what she'd become... she would live. The wound she had given herself in their name would be nothing. She would live, and be great again.

But she could not.

She tried, and she _could not._

"It remains," she said. The stain of humanity on her would not wipe clean. She touched the wet blood that that humanity had cost her. "This wound is mortal."

Her powers went skittering away the way they'd come, leaping about the ceiling before lifting through it entirely, back to the place they had been sent. They came out of her, too, abandoning her as if an unworthy traitor. Tentacles turned to ash and Fred found herself tumbling down. She turned herself in the air so that when she hit the ground Wesley was shielded from the impact atop her. The wind was knocked from her lungs and she winced and coughed.

When she opened her eyes she saw, lying beside her in one of the talon-torn rivets, a blue demon-woman who wore her face. Illyria, her form human once again, was dying with eyes wide open, pumping out her heart's blood onto the cracked tile.

She was dying slowly—it took a lot to kill a god-king, fallen though she was-- but so much more peacefully than she had millions of years before. She felt the life ebb out of her, tasted her human blood ebbing too from her mouth. The sleep of the Well was dragging her into its arms, making her eyelids feel heavy. But she couldn't let it claim her, not yet.

She wanted to see Wesley awake and alive; she had to. Even without Fred's soul, she loved him. It was that love that was causing her death and she knew she should hate him for it, and yet she couldn't.

The Valkyrie had been wrong—so wrong, fatally wrong—for the both of them. She knew she should hate her, too, but she didn't. She was too tired, besides. The Valkyrie could not have known. Now two of the oldest creatures in existence would be dead on the same day-- it seemed like the world should change somehow. She hadn't meant to kill Adele, but she knew the death-maiden was probably happier, back in Valhalla with her sisters. She herself had no such happiness to look forward to. She had to have what little she could, now.

"Winifred," she called out, weakly.

Fred was sitting up, pulling Wesley into her lap. His eyelids were twitching, almost ready to open. Illyria reached for him but he was too far away. Fred turned to look at her, and she saw no triumph there in her former shell's eyes, no hatred or gloating. Illyria wondered at that but didn't want to spend her last thoughts on it. She saw Wesley breathe in and out, stirring in Fred's arms. Soon his eyes would light up in wonder and happiness, but she knew she would not live to see it. The end was coming too fast. She fell, elbows giving way. Lifting her head to speak was a labor.

"Fred," she repeated, scarcely audible now.

Fred knew exactly what it was the demoness wanted. She wasn't as certain of her feelings, seeing Illyria dying. She knew she didn't hate her, though she had in the beginning, in the pure-sense way she could hate. Hating didn't bring any good; it clouded her influence. Useless. It had flared occasionally when Illyria had hurt Wesley, but she'd had to equally hate herself. With all her memories restored, she knew that she'd hurt him at least as badly as Illyria had—the actual killing aside-- and she had no excuse. Illyria had no soul of her own, no real concept, at first, of right and wrong. They hadn't existed to her when she'd lived. Fred knew also that she'd had no choice in the body she'd inhabited, and that she'd done the hollowing-out in a non-sentient form. Illyria had known, eons ago when she formulated her escape plan, that she would infect and inhabit some creature at some point, but that Illyria was one from long, long ago. The fact that she was dying on the floor in human form proved that.

Still... Fred knew she could take her revenge, the way she'd revenged Seidel. Fred could forgive nearly anything in others until they hurt her, and there had been pain, so much pain. Perhaps someday she could forgive Illyria, who had not only settled her debt but given more—given part of her own strength as an unforced gift. She could forgive the new Illyria, but it wasn't that simple. The ruthless demon god-king was still in there, more so than Angel with Angelus. It seemed so much simpler with him, like a light switch being turned on and off, though she knew that inside, for him, it was probably not so clear-cut. Light on—souled—Angel. Light off—unsouled—Angelus. It was different with Illyria—both sides were within her, constantly. It was more the way Spike had been, she supposed, before he had won his soul, though she had only his stories to relate to that. Anti-violence chip aside, he'd fought a battle with his demon and human sides every day.

She could stamp on Illyria, crush her, if she wished. She could withhold what she knew the dying demon-woman wanted most.

Illyria reached out her hand to feel Wesley's heartbeat, but she couldn't quite make it. Fred could be so cruel in her revenge now if she wanted to, could move away from that straining hand.

Illyria hadn't had a choice in her vessel. She hadn't had a choice in being an Old One, purest of demon blood. But she _had_ had a choice in giving up her life. She'd had a choice in joining a fight that was not her own. She'd had a choice when she'd defended Fred's boys.

They were connected, she and Illyria. They'd fought together, at the end.

For all of the terrible and cruel things that Illyria could be, Fred knew those choices should count for something.

She moved forward, took Illyria's wrist—once her own—and put her hand over Wesley's chest.

The demoness smiled, exhausted with dying. "He lives."

"Yes," Fred answered.

Illyria moved her hand, reaching up to clutch at Fred's sleeve. The woman recoiled from the icy feel even through the cloth, but she let her circle her upper arm with fingers that felt like frost-chilled stone.

Ice-blue eyes met brown ones, locked in. "You must..." Illyria began, struggling. "...You must care for him as he... cared for me. Love him."

Fred could only nod, tears forming once again.

"You will never leave him. Not like before."

This brought a surge of indignance through Fred, making her stiffen for an instant with anger. However, as the new memories came again to mind, the indignance fled as the truth chased it. Shame filled her instead.

"I won't," she replied, echoing Wes' words at her death.

The hand on her arm gained some last burst of power, tightening like an iron clamp. Were it not for the newly-infused strength, her slender bones would have cracked. "Swear it to me," Illyria commanded with none of her usual superiority. Her voice was faint and growing fainter, but still full of fortitude and implacable authority. Even—dignity.

"I promise."

Illyria nodded and the last of her strength left her. Her face lowered against the hard, unforgiving tile, cold and unwelcoming. Wesley and Fred had both died cradled in soft arms and with soft words to ease their passing, but she had no such comfort. She tried to tell herself that she did not need it, was above it, but she wasn't, not anymore. It was a lonely, horrible way for a human to die, and a humiliating way for the Old One she still was—slain by her own hand. She wished it did not matter to her. If none of it had mattered to her, she would be alive...but it did..._they_ did... _he did..._

Wesley woke then, but she was beyond knowing. In the moment that his eyes opened and lighted on the face of his lost beloved, the ancient eyes of Illyria closed and did not open again.

Illyria, the fallen god-king, was dead.


	9. The Reunion

Author's Notes: First of all, thank you so much for the reviews. You all don't know how many times it's been a review in my inbox that jump-started me working on this again. This story is much larger and more complex than I ever really intended...

A word of explanation. No, it did not take me all this time to write the five pages of this chapter. This chapter and what will be the next were originally one huge (18 pages single-spaced and growing!) mega-chapter that I felt was getting too much crammed into it, so I seperated it. I'm not so sure that this chapter has quite enough to stand on its own, but it was better than the alternative. Much Fresley relationship pondering ahead.

Chapter 9: The Reunion

Wesley was in heaven.

He knew it was Fred—really, truly her—the moment he saw her smile. It was a watery smile, that was true, but a smile nonetheless and _hers_. It was Fred above him, holding him, and not Illyria. He'd never had difficulty telling the difference, though he had let himself believe at the last. Just before death, one was supposed to have clarity, he had been told. One was supposed to the see the events of a whole life flash before the eyes, and know how the events had knitted themselves together into one conclusive whole. It had not been so with him. The edges of reality had blurred, letting him believe a sweet lie to ease his passing.

Only now he knew it had not been a lie, and for the first time he could remember in the bleak, grey stretch that had become his life, he felt joy rush through his veins. No, he _did_ remember. When Winifred had kissed him that first, unexpected time, he had felt happiness like this-- knowing that the world was bright and good because she was in it and they were together. Now as then, wherever it was that they were, they were together as the vision of Fred had promised. It could be on earth, in any dimension, hell or paradise, and he wouldn't care.

It had to be heaven, though, because he could not imagine Winifred in hell. If this was heaven, it was... dim, and stark. He tore his eyes away from her face to wonder at the place where they were. He'd been wrong, he knew at once. This was not heaven, it could not be. This was where he'd died.... or had he not died at all? No, he could remember slipping away. He couldn't remember the actual moment where death had come over him, but he knew somehow that it had. A gaping rent was torn in his sweater, but beneath it no wound was seeping. There was no pain, though he wouldn't have remembered to feel it, he thought, a bit poetically, with Fred beside him. Perhaps she had come to Earth to take him to the afterlife, where she was. They could both be ghosts, shades—but they were so _real_. His body felt warm and solid. If this was death, it wasn't anything like he had expected, if anyone could fully expect such things. He knew that in most versions of the afterlife—or the pleasant ones, at least—one was given a restored body, free of hurt, aging, and any human frailty. But this was not the afterlife, so far as he could tell. Not yet, anyway.

Which meant that he had been dead, but had been brought back. Somehow.

Was the same true of Fred? There was only one way he knew to seek the answer. He reached out a hand to touch her, and she was warm and living.

"Fred?" It was not a question of who she was but whether she was truly whole and real and with him at last.

"It's me, Wes," she answered, in the sweet tones he knew distinctly as hers. In an instant he forgot that that same voice had ever produced tones so deep and cold. She stroked his face and her skin was soft, not a hard, brittle shell. He caught the fragile wrist and felt the pulse of life there, nearly weeping as he pressed his lips against it.

She was alive.

Wesley rested his face against the curve of her neck and breathed in her scent. He ran a hand through her hair, so soft and fine it slipped through his fingers. He kissed every feature of her face, ran his hands over every part of her, committing all to memory.

It seemed, holding her so closely, as if the past months had all been a horrible waking dream. They were wearing same clothes as they both had in death. It was as if they hadn't died at all, they hadn't suffered, and a demon wearing Fred's stolen body had never walked the earth. But it wasn't a dream—it had _happened_—but it all seemed to melt away. Wesley hoped with all he had that _this_ wasn't a dream. That he wasn't dreaming of her hands soft in his hair, of her warmth, of her smile.

It was not a dream, and when he knew it he finally did cry, letting out healing sobs of release that were more shuddering choking gulps than water-tears.

"Don't cry, Wes," Fred told him, even as she did the same. "It's gonna be okay. We're together now, and it's okay. I'm never gonna leave you, never. The astronauts won."

Wes smiled, realizing that she was rambling, just like she always had. He'd never thought he'd hear the running sentences again, nor be able tease her about them. Perhaps someday soon they would be healed enough to do such things once more .

"I never left you. I was in there all the time... trying to reach you, Wes. I didn't mean to die and leave you all alone. I'm so sorry, honey, so sorry."

"No," Wesley mumbled against her, even as his mind processed her words.

_'This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?'_

"You were there—in... her—the entire time?" he clarified slowly, unable to keep out a tone of sorrowed dread.

"Yes."

The hammer descended. It shattered his paradise into pieces.

"Then you could see everything she saw." The pieces embedded in him, twisting sharply. "You know what she knew. Everything I...."

"Yes," she repeated, softly, as their eyes locked.

Fred _knew_. She had experienced his actions, manic and dark when he had lost her. She knew he had stabbed Gunn, non-fatally or not, and deliberately shot Knox down without a second thought. Her memories had been restored, and so she would know of Connor now, and Lilah1. She had seen it all, and he knew he could not be forgiven. This was the end.

How _could_ she forgive him? He did not think he deserved it. What would keep her from running away, far from him, as fast as she could? She had every right, every sane reason. He was going to lose her-- less certainly than he had before-- but her _love_ would never touch him. This was cautious kindness now, because he had hurt so much. She would stay with him until she thought it was safe to leave, and day after day he would see the lingering fear of him in her eyes...

Then he couldn't look at her anymore. "You don't have to..." he began slowly, his heart breaking. He ground the words out through the pain, which was not sharp anymore but heavy and dull with resignation. Crushing and blunt. Lasting-- worse. "If you want to go, I understand. You mustn't..."

Wesley filled in the words in his mind that he couldn't bear to say aloud. She mustn't stay because he had suffered, because she knew it would hurt him so badly to lose her love. She mustn't stay because she was – he took a breath so sharp it stung his ribs—afraid of him. Afraid of his love, which was a force beyond the everyday force of the emotion. Afraid of the darkness that he wished she hadn't had to see, and that he wished he'd never let loose.

But Fred was not afraid. She was not one to be scared of darkness. It was her gift to see the goodness past the dark, from the very first—in Angel, in Spike... in her Wesley. She couldn't approve of his actions, and she wasn't going to try to justify them, but she could forgive them, as the others had forgiven them. She even knew that it would be natural if she feared them, though not for herself. Wesley would never hurt her, no matter if she hurt him—she knew because she _had_, so many times. It would go against everything he was, and everything in his heart. He would let her go if she wished it; he was trying to let her go now, for her own sake. He would never harm her—she knew that the way she knew that her name was Fred, or the way she knew that she wanted only Wesley.

She trusted him. She had always trusted him, from her first months back from Pylea, despite what had happened because of Billy, and Connor. When she'd needed help with Seidel, and later with Jasmine, she had come to him first, despite his exile.

It was true that there was darkness in him, but it was not so different from the darkness she carried. They were not so different, she thought, on the whole, as people—for the most part gentle and loving, set on doing good, but underneath, at times... Wesley understood that about her when no one else did or would, even as he put her on a pedestal. Charles and Angel had not been able to, though she didn't blame them for that. It wasn't a part of herself that she was proud of, but it was burned in from Pylea. She was better at keeping it locked away than he was, but she was not so sure that she would not have done some of the same things he had, were the situation reversed. She might have pulled the trigger on Knox. She'd done no less to Seidel, after all.

_'We all got our demons.'_

She'd had hers, literally.

Wesley had lost everything, had been left not quite fully sane—she understood that feeling, too. It hadn't been just her death, because she knew she was more than a lover to him. He'd lost his last hope and brightness in the world, because she represented such for him. It wasn't right that it should be that way. It wasn't right, that one woman should be all his happiness. But he hadn't had much else; he was too damaged, her Wesley. Fred made a vow to herself, there, holding him. He would have all of her love that he could hold, and she would see to it that there were other things, too, that could bring him joy again. He was broken, as she had been broken once, and they would heal together. They both wanted to banish every last dark part of themselves. Fred wasn't sure it was possible, in the world they lived in, to lose it totally. Darkness seemed to be a necessity, with the work they had to do. But they would try, and they would be happy.

If there was one thing above all else that Winifred had learned as he'd held her in her dying moments—then as she was trapped in Illyria--it was that she and Wesley simply _were_, and there was no question about it. They had survived the grave and a hundred horrors and come back together. Their love could not be denied, and that was all.

Winifred did not say any of this. Sometime he would want to hear these thoughts and she would share them, but now he just needed to know she was with him. "For someone so smart you do miss a lot, don' t you?" she teased, so gently. "Didn't I just say I was never gonna leave you?"

A sigh came out of him that must have drained his lungs. The agony fled his face and she kissed him.

"I'm afraid you're stuck with me, whether you like it or not."

He smiled and kissed her back, over and over, letting her touch wash over him like the healing balm it was. After long moments, as their minds and hearts finally began to settle in some small way, thoughts could come into Wesley's mind that weren't filled with Fred. His brief death had created a fuzzy line, with the events after it bright and forward, those before dimmer but growing more clear as the seconds flew.

"The others," he blurted, bolting upright. "They were fighting. It could still be going on."

She showed no urgency to match his, only smoothed his brow again. "It's over, Wesley. The Black Thorn is gone."

Wes felt a surge of pride in his comrades, followed by another alarm. "Angel said that there would be retribution from the Senior Partners. Possibly an army—"

"That's all over, too—and we won, Wes. You won. They're alive."

"And we were both brought back." It was difficult to force all the information through his newly-awoken mind, like trying to concentrate and work while one is too sleepy. He didn't want to surrender to that sleepiness, but it was difficult to fight it. Wesley let himself relax and reached out to stroke Winifred's cheek. All of his churning thoughts came out in one simple word. "How?"

Fred turned, unconsciously, to where Illyria had fallen. The dead warrior was not there.

And they were not alone.

Closing notes: Since the next chapter and this were originally one, this means it will be posted within a few days, maybe even today if I find the time to do the final editing and fill-ins on it. There are two chapters left in this puppy. Next time—we see a return to Dark! Fred, Wes' reaction to Illyria's sacrifice, and the other shoe falls—BIG time. The Valkyrie could have a made a very, very big mistake...

* * *

1 I'm not going to elaborate on this point, but I put this in spite of the fact that we know at least Wesley remembered his relationship with Lilah during the mind-wipe. Arguably Fred did, too, but perhaps not in the same context. 


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